


I Dare You

by midnightbrightlights



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Elves being annoying, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Magic, Nairi has not had a very nice life, Nairi is confused, Past Drug Addiction, Slow Burn, Supportive elves?, The author is also confused, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:02:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 80,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21947008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightbrightlights/pseuds/midnightbrightlights
Summary: Nairi O'Callahan is possibly the last candidate anyone would look at for saving the world, especially a world she didn't know existed until about ten minutes ago. But she just might be the only one who can. First, though, she has to save herself, and it may not be something she can do alone.Still, she has three elves in her living room who won't bloody shut up, and giving up altogether is looking better and better all the time.[Reworked]
Relationships: Legolas Greenleaf/Tauriel, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Thranduil (Tolkien)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 122





	1. Flashforward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again....  
> If you read the original, thank you for your patience while I worked myself out of the corner I was rapidly writing my way into. I hope this slightly-more-polished version makes up for the long wait.  
> If you haven't read the original, there is still time to click the back button. If you're feeling brave about descending into a giant heap of chaos, well, let me know what you think!
> 
> *This entire fic will contain a variety of canon-typical violence and torture, and will also be dealing with self-harm, past suicidal thoughts, and addiction. If that's not for you, no worries! If you ever want more info or a specific warning tag, feel free to let me know. Safe reading!*

More blood spattered down onto the absurdly pale grey concrete below her, and Nairi almost laughed.  _ Cleaning this’ll just be a riot for somebody.  _ Instead, though, she coughed, a fat string of bloody saliva dangling from her lips. She shifted slightly on her aching feet, although she really had very limited options for making herself any more comfortable, and she knew nothing she did would help. Her wrists, chained to the wall a few feet behind her, were beginning to go numb, and by now her exhaustion was such that she was letting herself hang forward by the metal cuffs, applying pressure that certainly wasn’t helping.

She ran her tongue over her teeth, wondering absently if they were bloodstained too, and spat onto the concrete floor in front of her toes, making a face at the relentless taste of iron in her mouth. God, there was blood  _ everywhere.  _ It wasn’t even a concerning amount, really, but enough was spattered around that it made for a decidedly unpleasant place to be. 

The cruel hand came down across her face again, sending her head whipping to the side, long strands of unkempt dark hair flying into her mouth, open in an involuntary gasp. The hit had rattled her jaw and jarred her neck, and she was sure that there was more blood in her mouth than before, though she couldn’t really tell at this point. 

His hand, calloused and scarred and missing a pinky, grabbed her chin and roughly forced her to face him. “Look a’ me, bitch,”

Nairi cursed his deadly quiet voice, the silky calm tone that so opposed his words and his hands. He was the only person she’d ever run across who could purr insults like that, though she supposed she shouldn’t really have been surprised. Nairi growled, looking deliberately out of the side of her eyes to avoid his gaze, and spat blood into his face. “Listen, you absolute feckin’ bawbag,” she began, letting her voice slip into a heavier Scottish accent than she’d had cause to use in a while. “I’ll no’ be takin’ orders from ya, an’ I’ve half a mind to lamp ya if you don’t shut your bloody gob. So  _ fuck the hell off,” _ She gritted her teeth, spitting the last into his face and finally meeting his gaze with her green eyes flashing, just to ensure she got her point across. 

From just out of her line of sight, she heard a familiar, vaguely approving huff of air, the closest to a laugh she’d get in this situation. Even though Nairi knew he couldn’t see her face, she bared her bloodstained teeth in an unpleasant approximation of a smile, the best she could offer with her swollen face. She managed only to widen the split in her bottom lip, feeling a stinging sensation as the skin pulled apart, and more warm blood trickled down her chin. 

For her insolence, though, she was dealt a heavy-handed blow to the gut, one that left her gasping and breathing through her nose as she willed herself not to vomit, though the contents of her stomach at this point were little more than bile and the blood she’d swallowed. The rings on his hand had only served to worsen her pain, and before she could even get her breath back, he was at her again, this time with a pointy little silver knife that he dragged down her left bicep. A shallow cut, one that would bleed and scar and burn like hell, but wouldn’t be enough to really damage her.  _ Well, at least I match now,  _ she thought with grim humour. 

“Why don’t we try this again, Nairi?”

She hated the way he said her name. “Go to hell.”

“Let me in, Nairi. Give it to me, it doesn’t have to hurt anymore,” he promised, purring in that silky voice. 

_ “Иди к черту, жалкий ублюдок! Я никогда не дам тебе ничего. Отвали обратно к твоей шлюхе мать!” _ Anybody who knew Nairi knew that getting her mad enough to start speaking Russian was a death sentence. He didn’t flinch though, merely chuckling at her. She knew he couldn’t comprehend the words she was hurling at him, knew they wouldn’t do any good anyway. She could tell him to fuck off until she was blue in the face, in every language she knew, and it still wouldn’t get them out of these chains. 

“Now, Nairi,” he tsked. “That can’t have been very complimentary, can it? Didn’t your mother ever teach you to have manners? I know she did,” He swung his fist again with those last words, and she felt the delicate bones of her nose splinter under his knuckles, the rings cutting into her cheek as he went past.  _ Damn it.  _

She heard a quiet, restrained intake of breath from behind her and sighed. This was hardly the worst situation she’d ever found herself in over the reckless, destructive years. But she knew he wasn’t seeing it that way. He was only seeing her in pain, and himself helpless, and she was probably reminding him of some past devastation that she couldn’t even begin to guess. She knew he probably wouldn’t tell her. Nairi blinked rapidly, trying to clear her eyes of the reflexive tears pooling in the wake of her nose injury, and spat blood at her feet again. “I’m fine,  _ mo shoírghrá.”  _

Her captor sneered, his mouth twisting into something ugly. “Isn’t that sweet? You’re only hurting yourself, Nairi. You’re hurting both of you. It can all stop, all the pain can stop, if you just let me in.”

She turned her attention back to him and glared up at the man, untamed fire still burning in her eyes. “Damn you,” she growled out, her anger swelling as she stared down his impassive face. “Damn you and your obsession. Damn your heartlessness. Damn you straight to hell, you psychotic bastard.”

He chuckled again, only infuriating her further. His rough hand gripped her chin once more, forcing her to meet his gaze, and he bent forward until his nose was no more than an inch away from hers. “You’re stronger than I thought, I’ll give you that. Stubborn, resilient Irish bitch.” He smiled, and she tried in vain to pull her head out of his grip, away from his foul breath and the crazed look in his eyes. 

“But you must see,” he continued, “you must see you’ll never leave this place.” He let her go to spread his arms, gesturing to the dimly lit, grey prison. “If you surrender now I’ll let you live, Nairi, and your blond boy toy over there too.”

Nairi swallowed, her entire body shaking with rage. “You fucking bastard.” Her hands were scraped and bruised, blood from her raw wrists running down them in rivulets. Her icy fingertips had been mostly numb for the last hour, but now she could feel a slight warmth returning to them. Involuntary panic swept through her, her stomach flipping in fear, and she jerked her arms hard against the chains, using the pain of the metal biting into her cut wrists to ground her.  _ I will not be afraid. I will  _ not  _ be afraid,  _ she screamed to herself, shaking her curtain of dirty, dark brown hair out of her eyes to glare out with renewed fire.  _ I am Donovan O’Callahan’s daughter, and I will not be afraid.  _

A cool breeze began to stir her tangled hair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr at midnightbrightlights.  
> Translations:  
> Иди к черту, жалкий ублюдок! Я никогда не дам тебе ничего. Отвали обратно к твоей шлюхе мать! : Go to hell, pathetic bastard! I will give you nothing. Fuck off back to your whore mother! (Russian)  
> Mo shoírghrá: My love (Irish)


	2. Monster, Cursed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Nairi makes some bad decisions and is entirely grumpy. 
> 
> I know better than to try to have a posting schedule, so chapters will appear as they are finished. But I do promise not to ignore this story for a month at a time again!

**_Ten Months Earlier_ **

In a softly lit, cheery Scottish pub, Nairi O’Callahan slammed her shot glass down on the bar with unnecessary force and blinked hard at the slightly blurry figure of the bartender. “Another.”

“Nairi,” Ean’s tone was vaguely reproachful. “I can’ let you do tha’. You’re halfway ta poisonin’ yourself already.”

She glared at him through a curtain of unwashed hair, and when she spoke her words were slightly slurred. “Help a girl out, Ean, I’m not nearly drunk enough for today.”

The man who served as both her former employer and the closest thing she had to a friend sighed heavily, planting his hands on wide hips. “Nairi, love, it’s time t’ move on from this. An’ you know Sorscha’ll no’ be cuttin’ you any slack for bein’ hungover tomorrow.” His round, red face was kind, as always, but he stood firm. 

Nairi slumped a bit more on her bar stool, thinking of his bright-eyed, blonde daughter. Little Sorscha thought the sun rose and set in “Auntie” Nairi’s eyes for some reason, and she almost felt guilty. Trying her damndest to get blackout drunk would certainly not be making any kind of good impression on the girl who looked up to her, but she found she really didn’t give a fuck. “Yeah, well, I kicked the drugs for her, didn’t I?” she asked in annoyance. “I’ve done my bit.”

“Whiskey on the rocks.”

Nairi turned in mild surprise at the voice beside he, a slow, southern, American drawl. He was sporting a white cowboy hat, blue jeans and leather boots, with cropped sandy brown hair and a tanned face.  _ Jesus.  _ Maybe she was already drunker than she thought, if she’d managed to miss him walking in and sitting down next to her. Living in small-town Scotland meant she knew everyone, when she bothered to remember their names, and any stray newcomer that did occasionally show up sure as hell didn’t dress like  _ that.  _

“That hat should be fuckin’ illegal,” she said flatly without bothering to look in his direction, eve as he slid his ordered drink toward her. Then she did look at him, fighting to focus her vision, surprise written all over her too-thin, too-tired features. “The fuck’re you doin’?”

“Seems to me it ought to be your choice how much you drink.” he returned smoothly, smiling with even, white teeth.

Nairi raised an eyebrow at him questioningly, surveying the foreign, admittedly attractive stranger. “What, you tryin’a poison me?”

He smiled, the lack of movement in his facial muscles making her wonder if he’d had a great deal of plastic surgery. “Nah. ‘Course not.”

“Pity,” Nairi returned apathetically, turning away from him again, and drained the contents of his glass. If he was going to help her get drunk, well, she wasn’t complaining. 

Somewhere between glasses two and three, he took out his phone, unfazed by her lack of interest in the conversation. Nairi completely missed the picture he took of her face.

Ean walked her home sometime around midnight, with Nairi hanging onto him and stumbling drunkenly against his broad body, barely conscious. The way she liked it. 

Through her blurred vision, she could see the few others out this late shooting Ean pitying glances, herding one another across the street and away from her. She didn’t blame them. If she could hastily scurry away from herself too, she would in a heartbeat. Nairi was the sort of person people ran from, but she couldn’t run from herself.

She leaned heavily on Ean while he pulled a key from under her doormat and let them into her house. He heaved her half-conscious, compliant form into his strong arms, hauling her deadweight into the bedroom. She wasn’t exactly a chore to carry around anymore; she couldn’t even remember the last time she wasn’t twenty pounds underweight. 

Nairi let herself fall flat onto the cheap mattress when he set her down, spread out like an intoxicated starfish, not even bothering to climb under the duvet. She didn’t stay awake long enough to hear him leave. 

_“Dad!”_ _she protested, tears she didn’t want to shed filling her eyes anyway._ Traitors. _Her perfectly applied mascara was running in black rivers down her cheeks, ones she desperately tried to wipe away. “Dad, you’re not being fair!”_

_ Her father just looked at her with patience in his blue eyes, only infuriating her further with his calm reaction to her shouting. “Nairi, you’ve no’ even been to uni yet, darlin’. This isn’t the rest o’ your life.” _

_ “But Daddy, I love him!” _

_ “Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop bitching, Nairi,” her mother sighed loudly, passing through the room with a laundry basket perched on one bony hip. She didn’t spare her daughter another glance, or acknowledge the angry look from her husband, taking her red waves and Russian accent upstairs without another word. _

_ “You’re my daughter, Nairi,” Donovan was saying firmly. “And you’re still my little girl. I know you’re upset right now, but as long as I can protect you, I will.” _

_ “I’m fifteen years old!” she shot back, crossing her arms. “I’m not a baby!” How  _ dare  _ he treat her like a child? He didn’t know. He didn’t understand. Jamie loved  _ her.  _ Jamie wanted to take  _ her  _ to the dance. He was just being thick headed.  _

_ “You’re my little lady, darlin’, but still too young for a boyfriend. I suspect you always will be.” Donovan smiled at her gently, his hand brushing over her cheek. _

_ Nairi, however, wasn’t to be placated. “Oh, hang Jamie!” she shouted, indignant anger overtaking her tears. “To hell with boys altogether! I don’t give a damn about that, Dad, not when you’re treating me like a child!” _

_ “You are a child!” Donovan shouted back suddenly. “My child! And you’ll no’ be usin’ tha’ language in this house!” _

_ “I hate you!” she growled out under her breath, a flash of hot anger hitting her.  _

_ “Nairi, you headstrong, foolish girl! You watch your tongue.” Her mother put in, having reentered the room with the now empty laundry basket in time to witness their last exchange.  _

_ “Varya, don’t.” His reproachful words only earned him an annoyed huff and a slew of muttered Russian insults. “Nairi--” Donovan tried again. _

_ “I hate you!” Nairi clenched her hands into fists at her sides, her entire face flushing red. “You don’t understand anything!” _

_ “That’s enough, Nairi. I--” he stopped, halting his words with a cough.  _

_ And she was still so angry, but she turned anyway. “Dad?” _

_ Donovan looked at her with vague alarm creeping onto his features, his hand reaching up to his throat.  _

_ “Dad?” Nairi repeated in alarm, her anger quickly being overtaken by worry. “Dad!” Because Donovan wasn’t breathing. _

_ Varya rushed over, muttering in Russian, and elbowed Nairi aside. The backs of her knees hit the sofa and she sat down automatically, barely registering where she was. Nairi was transfixed in horror, watching the nightmarish scene unfold before him.  _ Oh, God, help him!  _ Her father sank onto his knees, somehow unable to breathe, his face turning an utterly terrifying shade of purple.  _

_ “Dad,” she managed again. “Daddy, please.” _

_ “Shut up!” Varya raged, flitting uselessly around her husband. _

_ Nairi bit her lip hard until it ached, siting helplessly on the edge of the couch, silenced by her mother and utterly useless while tears ran anew down her cheeks. Her father was dying before her eyes, choking on the very air around him, or so it seemed, and she could do nothing. He was dying, and the very last thing she’d said to him had been that she hated him.  _

_ “Daddy, I’m sorry!” she burst out, only for another icy look from Varya to freeze any further words in her throat. Donovan dropped heavily to the carpet, eyes closed and face blue. A call to the paramedics would do nothing now--they’d never get here in time. Nairi covered her mouth and sobbed, shock making her entire body feel numb.  _

_ Varya stared down at her husband’s body in disbelief, straightening up slowly, and then she rounded on Nairi. “You monster!” she spat out, and Nairi flinched. “You vile little bitch, you killed my husband!” _

_ “Mama, I didn’t!” Nairi pleaded desperately.  _ I didn’t do anything. 

_ “I always knew something was wrong with you,” Varya shook her head. “Are you a witch? Is that it? Some kind of demon sent to punish me?” A mocking, bitter laugh escaped the woman.  _

_ Nairi was shaking, sobbing. “Mama, please!” _

_ Varya’s face hardened, and she shook her head once more, with finality. “I should have done this long ago.” She turned away, walking toward the front door while Nairi shook with heartbroken, terrified sobs.  _

_ Varya stood with a pair of Nairi’s silver-grey trainers in her hands, and held them out to the girl coldly. “Get out of my house.” _

_ Nairi didn’t move.  _ This isn’t happening. God, please, this isn’t happening. 

_ “Donovan isn’t here to protect you anymore,” Varya went on, narrowing her eyes. “Get out. Now.” _

_ Nairi stood numbly, trembling from head to foot, wondering if she was going to vomit. “Wh-what about Liam?” _

_ Varya sneered. “Liam is my son, he stays with me.” _

_ “But I--I’m your daughter,” Nairi protested in a small voice, her hand almost involuntarily reaching out to take the trainers from Varya. The woman recoiled as soon as the handover was complete, and the shoes felt too heavy in Nairi’s hands.  _

_ “You’re a monster,” Varya returned evenly, and held open the screen door.  _

_ The hallway mirror exploded in a rain of silver shards behind her, as, sobbing so hard she thought she might shake herself into pieces then and there, Nairi stumbled out onto her front steps. Orphaned, abandoned, and homeless, all in a matter of minutes, and somehow it was all her fault.  _

_ You’re a monster.  _

_ Monster. _

_ Monster. _

Nairi flew upright, her hands fisted tightly in the duvet on her lap, heart racing, breaths coming unevenly as the memory of her mother’s heartless words echoed around her aching skull. The mattress creaked beneath her as she shifted, still trembling slightly, and tried to focus on regulating her breathing. 

Ean must have removed her shoes last night, and had tucked her under the duvet, but she was still wearing the same stained cotton tank top and ripped jeans as she had been yesterday. They clung to her, soaked in sweat, and the skin visible above the scoop neck glistened with each heaving breath she took.

Nairi’s stomach lurched suddenly, and she flung off the duvet, stumbling out of bed in a clumsy, hungover hurry, managing just six steps before she caught her foot on one of the shoes Ean had discarded and fell flat onto her carpet. “Fuck!”

With her palms flat on the thin carpet on either side of her head, she pushed herself up gingerly and climbed to her knees. Her still-roiling stomach convinced her to crawl the rest of the way to the bathroom, where Nairi spent the morning as she always did the day after her father’s death--with her head in a porcelain bowl. 

She stood shakily some indeterminate amount of time later, bracing her thin, white hands on the sink and staring down her reflection in the mirror as she tried to catch her breath. She’d had that same nightmare every single year on the anniversary of that awful day, and no amount of drinking the night before ever seemed to black her out enough.  _ Should’ve known better by now. _

Nairi turned on the faucet full-blast and bent robotically to splash her face with icy water, then examined her reflection again, wincing slightly. 

Sweat-dampened, worn clothes hung on her too-thin frame, and her pale skin was worryingly washed out, making the mandala tattoo sleeve stand out harshly against the skin of her right arm. The blue pigment seemed to only highlight the black circles beneath her eyes, or what was visible of them, anyway. Unwashed, tangled brown hair straggled across her face, obstructing her view, and Nairi made no move to fix it, instead fumbling for her headache pills in the medicine cabinet and swallowing two dry. 

All the years of drinking, and she still couldn’t tolerate the hangovers. 

With a gusty sigh, Nairi turned and shuffled back to the bedroom, dropping face-first onto the mattress. She’d consider changing her clothes once the hangover was manageable.

She’d been lying there for about five minutes, wiggling one foot off of the edge of the bed and trying to will herself not to vomit again, and sighed loudly. The rest of her tiny Scottish town was evidently awake, raising hell outside, or so it seemed to her hungover ears.  _ Jesus, shut up already.  _

“Nairi!” Someone, probably Ean, damn him, was banging with a heavy fist on her front door.

“Bugger off!” She bellowed back, flipping off the general direction of her front door. She knew they couldn’t see her, but it was still oddly satisfying. 

“Nairi, you alright?”

“Fuck the hell off, I said!”

Muttering to herself in a half-delirious mix of Irish and English, Nairi hauled herself upright and made her way over to the closet, considering. She’d finally paid Ean off for the house, and thus had no more use for the waitress’s uniform. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d done the rest of her laundry. It wasn’t as if there was really any point to changing her clothes anyway. Or to going outside.

“Nairi O’Callahan, answer yer bloody door, I’ve half a mind to break it down!” That was Colin.  _ Jesus, Ean, you great overprotective lug.  _ Had he congregated the whole town on her front steps?

“Alright, damn you all, alright!” Apparently some decent clothes would be needed after all. 

Nairi wasn’t one to care much for how she dressed anymore, but she’d get an earful from Ean if she didn’t appear at least somewhat presentable, which was incentive enough to try. Groaning aloud at the lurching protest in her stomach, she bent down and poked through a haphazard stack of clothes on her floor, hopefully some of them clean. Or so she thought. 

When she opened the door a few minutes later, it was in a pair of loose cutoff shorts and an identical tank top, both a little bigger than she remembered thanks to the weight she somehow kept losing. “What in the fuck was so import--holy Jesus.”

It took a few seconds for Nairi to form words, during which she clamped her lips together and swallowed against the bile rising in her throat. “The hell?” She finally managed, feeling as though her innards had taken a dive into her toes. 

Ean had gathered a number of her acquaintances to mill about on her front porch, but they weren’t what had shocked her. 

Her front yard was utterly decimated, as though a silent, vicious tornado had whipped through while they’d all been asleep. The trees lay splintered on their sides, roots in the air in surrender, and debris was scattered everywhere. “The fuck happened?” 

“We cannae understan’ it neither, Nairi,” Colin told her, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker, a puzzled expression on his old, weather-beaten face. “Look a’ th’ rest o’ th’ street.”

She did, and as casually as possible braced herself against the side of her doorway. It was untouched, all of it. Exactly as she’d seen it every day for two years, a picture-perfect small town. It had come only for her, whatever  _ it  _ was. Nairi’s blood ran cold.

She raised her hands, palms outward toward the men, and shook her head. “It’s me,” she said softly. “I can’t explain it, but it’s me. Cursed or somethin’, I don’t know. Probably…” she sighed heavily, shaking her head. “Wouldn’t surprise me,” she muttered, mostly to herself, and then added louder, “Just stay off the property. Nothing ever happens to me, unfortunately. I’ll be fine.”

Colin shook his head, opening his mouth to protest, but Nairi backed into the house. “Don’t worry,” she insisted again, already feeling exhausted from the empty words and platitudes that went along with dealing with people. She shut the door behind her, this time ignoring their yells.

There had been a dress of Varya’s, when she was twelve, that spontaneously shredded into ribbons. The mirror that had shattered on that horrible day. Other little things too, over the years, and now this.

“Of course I would be fucking cursed,” Nairi shook her head, walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge to see if she’d already drank that last bottle of wine. 

She had.

“Damn it,” Nairi sighed halfheartedly, and instead moved across the open kitchen to the living room couch. She’d lie there a while, turn the old TV on if she was feeling unexpectedly motivated, and waste away another day. Maybe, if she was very lucky, the handsome Southern stranger would be back to enable her drinking later. Of course, Ean would glower at her, try to guilt-trip her with mentions of Sorscha, but-- _ Sorscha. _

“Motherfuckin’ son’v a--” Nairi cut herself off with a groan and let her head fall back against the couch. She’d forgotten Sorscha. Damn it all. 

She moaned and complained loudly about Sorscha whenever the girl in question was out of earshot, but, in her own admittedly limited way, Nairi did care about her, loathe as she was to admit it. Besides that, she did have an obligation to Ean. He had fed and clothed her, bought her a house, and employed her when she’d been high as a kite and properly suicidal. She could hardly afford to shirk babysitting duty now. Warped as it may be, Nairi did try to maintain some sense of honor and, if nothing else, she understood debts. 

Nairi peeled herself up off of the sofa wearily and jammed her feet into a pair of cheap black combat boots, ignoring the scuffed and peeling fake leather. When she flung open her front door for the second time that morning, she resolved not to look too hard at the wreckage that was her front yard, crossing it as quickly as she could. She’d deal with it later, but, in the meantime, she needed to find somewhere else to take Sorscha for the day. Probably to Colin’s store, if she could keep the girl from pulling down the entire pyramid of potatoes again. 

She huffed a short, dry approximation of a laugh at the memory of the tiny, blonde, waif-like thing up to her knees in dirty potatoes and shook her head as she cut across the yard, dodging stray branches and clumps of bush. 

A stick cracked behind her somewhere, and she started turning, jamming her fists into the back pockets of her shorts. “Sorscha, let’s go--”  _ Oh.  _ Nairi paused, her brain momentarily short circuiting, still hungover and confused. 

That was decidedly not Sorscha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: midnightbrightlights. Swing by for ramblings and progress updates on this story and my other WIPs.


	3. Elvish Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which elves are real and Thranduil is insensitive.

They were walking with the late morning sun directly behind them, and Nairi squinted, reflexive tears blurring her eyes for a moment as she fought the brightness. Through her dark eyelashes, she could just make out the three figures--two blobs of green flanking a taller, fuzzy figure wrapped in something odd and long and silver. She shivered despite the warmth of the sun, blinking at them again. 

It could have been her imagination, handicapped as her view of them was with the sun, but they seemed to move differently, walking with some unnatural grace that gave her pause. The same wind stirring her messy hair toyed with theirs, and Nairi couldn’t shake the feeling once again that something was very, very off about them. Their hair looked long, flowing, rivaling even hers in length, and her hair only hung past the cuffs of her shorts because she hadn’t cared enough to get a haircut in several years.

They continued toward her, picking their way across the undeveloped field her property bordered and crossing now into the chaotic post-tornado disaster that was her yard. Nairi hesitated a moment longer, then turned on her heel, biting back a Gaelic curse as an upended stick scratched her leg sharply. Without another backward glance, she strode decisively back into the house. She could just go out the back door and cut through the alley to pick up Sorscha. 

Maybe it was nothing at all, just her hungover mind playing tricks on her, but it never hurt to be a bit cautious about these things. Nairi was far more reckless than most, to be sure, but even she had the good sense not to poke at things that didn’t quite feel right.  _ Especially not in dear old Scotland,  _ she added to herself with a trace of sarcasm. 

Just like her father’s Ireland, Scotland was home to all sorts of tales of faeries and the supernatural, and at any given time, some pub-goer would be telling a chilling tale of something odd that had happened out on a hill, or in the woods at night. It was broad daylight and Nairi wasn’t anywhere near a forest, but for once in her life, she was still going to trust her instincts on this one.

She was halfway over the threshold of her back door when a heavy knock sounded at the front. “Shit,” Nairi muttered, cursing her pulse for jumping at the sound. God damn Colin and his damned stories. She’d let it all get to her head, evidently, between her hangover and the tales of banshees and faeries that he’d been spouting recently.

_ It’s probably only Sorscha, come to see where the hell I’ve got to, _ Nairi told herself comfortingly, determinedly walking back to her front door, boots thumping on the wood. It still puzzled her as to why Ean insisted she watch the girl, as she usually ran positively wild anyway, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d shown up unexpectedly.\

Nairi opened the door with a painted smile on her face and a firm grip on her stupid, useless fear. “Sor--oh god.” She slammed the door shut straightaways, not even sure what she’d seen but entirely sure she didn’t like it.

A slim, brown leather boot inserted itself firmly over the threshold, and the door bounced back into her hand. “Damn it.” Nairi hissed, wondering if now was an acceptable time to run back to her kitchen drawer for a switchblade.

She let the door swing open slowly, with her arms now crossed and her feet planted apart, and glared daggers at the trio of-- _ god, what were they _ \--on her front steps.

A woman had been the one to put her foot in the door, and she was standing just in front of two blond men, half a head taller than Nairi and wearing a friendly expression in spite of the carved wood bow in her one of her hands. She turned her head slightly, and Nairi’s blood chilled as she revealed a severely pointed ear.

“You’re about a hundred miles from the nearest Ren fest,” she said bluntly, masking her stupidly irrational fear with sarcasm and threats.

The woman furrowed a brow. “Nairi?”

“Who the fuck is asking?” she shot back harshly. She was entirely inconsequential, and no one she didn’t already know should be asking for her, let alone some insane Comic-Con rejects. 

If she was startled by Nairi’s reply, she didn’t show it. “I am Tauriel,” she said after a pause, “and this is Prince Legolas,” she indicated the shorter blond, the one dressed in the same odd green and leather ensemble as she was, “and King Thranduil of the Woodland Realm.”

Nairi jerked her head up at that, looking up into the eyes of the man standing behind them, draped in ostentatious silver fabric from head to toe and sporting a silver circlet on his brow. His gaze was arrogant and haughty, and so, so blue.

His eyes met hers and she flinched visibly.  _ Cigarette smoke filled her nose, the cold park bench dug into her no matter how she moved, and that night. That night when everything was black, and Dixie kept screaming. _

Nairi blinked hard, willing herself out of whatever dizzying flashback she’d been sucked into, and resumed her hard, relentless glare. “Uh-huh. Still not a Ren fest. Fuck off.” She made to close the door again, but Tauriel flashed out a hand, holding the door open. “We only want to talk.”

Nairi raised herself on tiptoe, looking with some difficulty over their shoulders and across the street. She made a quiet growling noise of frustration and jerked her head, gesturing them inside. If she had to choose, she'd rather have a mad circus happening in the house, and not on the front steps. Damn nosy small-town Scotsmen would never give her a moment's peace if they caught sight of these eejits.

Her head gave a particularly painful twinge as she shut the door behind them and Nairi cursed quietly, wondering why the hell she'd even gotten up this morning. She usually didn't anyway, and especially not after drinking as much as she had last night. Of course, usually she didn't have a bunch of concerned neighbors making a racket because her pitiful excuse for a yard looked like more hell than usual. Nairi snorted humorlessly. God, this day… and it wasn't even noon yet.

A metal crash had her whipping her head around and she entered the kitchen just in time to catch the younger-looking blond idiot retracting his hand carefully from her gas stovetop, one of the grates above the burners rocking slightly. His shocked expression was almost comical, and she shook her head, striding over impatiently and halting the motion of the stovetop with one hand as she passed.

Nairi deliberately took up a position with her right hand inches away from the knife drawer, just in case, and crossed her arms in a simultaneously defensive and slightly threatening stance. “So what the fuck is this all about, then?”

The woman cocked her head curiously at her, leaning in the open doorway separating the kitchen and living room. “You don’t know.” It wasn't a question.

“No,” Nairi shot back shortly. “I bloody well don’t.”

The stupid blond one exchanged a slightly worried look with Tauriel. “You have never questioned the things that happen around you, then?” he prompted after a pause, as though he thought she were utterly daft.

Nairi swallowed, suddenly not sure she wanted to hear them out, but shook her head mutely.

“Things around you destroy themselves when you're angry, shatter when you are afraid.”

_ And sometimes a man drops dead for no reason.  _ Her mother had called her a monster, had referenced witchcraft in her fingers. And she knew all at once that she couldn't hear them confirm it. _ It's not possible _ , whispered the rational voice in her mind. But Nairi had never been a predominantly rational person.

“Just get out.” Her voice was hard, unforgiving and icy. Because protecting herself was, and always had been, her only priority. “Get the fuck out!”

“You will listen.” Thranduil broke his silence, hovering just behind his companions, and she frowned at his patronizing tone.  _ Because I wish it _ , his cold blue eyes seemed to add. He was every inch the king he'd been introduced as, and Nairi loathed his stupid arrogance.

“I  _ will  _ tell you to fuck off, you bloody pox,” she countered hotly. “And, for the record, when a woman who's done time for assault tells you to beat it, you haul ass.”

He arched a thick eyebrow. “I'll wait.” A parent waiting to scold their child until they stopped throwing a tantrum. God, she hated him. She hated all of them.

“You’ll be waiting a damn long time.”

“We have eternity.” He returned with a maddening shrug. “It matters little.”

“ _ Adar _ , ” Whatever-his-name-was looked at him with vague reproach, saying something in a language Nairi couldn't recognize.

“Nairi,” Tauriel tried. “You are the last one alive in this world with Elvish blood in your veins. You're our last chance.”

Nairi’s stomach fell into her toes, and she felt as though she was hearing her own voice from underwater. “What?” She managed, her mind racing desperately to contradict this madwoman’s words. She was crazy. She had to be.

“She is of no use to us.” Thranduil said flatly, beginning to turn away. “She is weak and untrained, not to mention…” he paused, looking over her with something like disgust. “...unstable.”

“You son of a bitch.” Nairi snarled out. “I swear to god--”

He turned with vague disinterest to Tauriel. “Perhaps if her father--”

That was it. “You know nothing about my dad.” Nairi spat, her hand flying downward into her kitchen drawer. “Not a damn thing. And whatever the hell you think you know,” her fingers closed over the metal switchblade, “you can take it to hell.” 

With those words, Nairi lunged forward, lethal metal blade in hand, seeing red and heedless of the consequences. The other two went immediately for their weapons, Tauriel palming a wicked silver dagger while the man had an arrow trained suddenly on her heart. Ignoring the imminent danger they were posing, she crossed the kitchen in seconds and plunged her own weapon downward, straight toward his heart.

And the Elvenking caught her hand. She froze in wordless disbelief as his hand flashed out, almost faster than her eye could track, and closed around her wrist with impossible strength. She knew fighting to free herself from his grip would be futile, and merely stared at him uncomprehendingly, her arm held above her head in his relentless grip. He squeezed her wrist a little tighter, glaring at her with icy eyes.  _ Drop it _ , he commanded her silently, then turned over his shoulder and brusquely said something to his guards, again in that language she couldn’t name. They obeyed his apparent order, putting away their weapons.

Nairi winced at the added pressure he continued to put on her wrist and the switchblade dropped involuntarily from her grasp, clattering to the tile floor. The instant it left her hand, he released her wrist and gripped her shoulder instead, backing her the short distance to the wall and pinning her there, looking for all the world as though he could murder her with half a thought.  _ So do it _ , she thought brazenly.  _ See if I give a damn _ .

She cursed herself for not taking note of the deadly sword he’d evidently had on his hip under that bloody  _ dress, _ and squirmed in vain as he leveled it with her shoulders, the razor thin silver edge a hair’s breadth from her throat. She extended her neck awkwardly, desperately, her heartbeat pounding in her throat.

Nairi started to jerk one knee roughly upward in a street-fighting sort of move she’d had occasion to use too many times, but it was apparent that he was above such tactics. He moved to stand close enough to her that her personal space felt thoroughly invaded, setting himself up in a position where, with his added height, it was nearly impossible for her to hit anything hard enough to hurt.

“There you are,” he murmured, eyes glinting with something she couldn’t read, and didn’t want to. Her collarbone was stinging where the sword had brushed it, and he made no move to sheath the blade, but Nairi relaxed a little nonetheless. She didn’t get the feeling he’d use it on her now. And there was no basis for this assumption, he was a stranger in her home who had just pinned her to a wall, but some of the tension drained from her anyway.

“You have fire, Nairi, but it is your choice where to direct it. You have seen how far drowning it in wine and the weight of your own misery can take you--turn it somewhere else now. Wake up.”

Nairi flinched as though he’d slapped her. She’d known this man for all of five minutes and it seemed he’d already worked out everything about her. Wine and misery.  _ And drugs _ , her mind whispered traitorously. Her dad would’ve just about killed her if he could see her now. A wreck of a human disaster, well aware of what she was and yet unmotivated to change herself, hungover and high half the time, and now pinned to the wall with a sword at her throat by a man who was too goddamn strong to possibly be human.  _ I’m sorry, Dad _ .

She glared up at Thranduil, his last words echoing in her ears. Wake up. “Right then. Explain what the hell all’v you are on about. Really explain. And for the love of all that’s holy, put that thing away and let me up.” She’d been tempted to tack on a threat, hinting what she’d do to them if he didn’t, but bit it back quickly. What could she possibly do to them? He could have killed her, and all so easily. Nairi was well out of her depth, and she knew it.

“Before I ‘let you up’,” he echoed in a tone that made it clear he was mocking her word choice, “understand this. If you should ever try to harm me or my guards again, you will have more to contend with than a bit of blood.”

With those words, he swung his weapon artfully away from her throat, vanishing it again among the folds of his ridiculous ensemble, and Nairi leaned back on the wall with a shaky sigh, one hand coming up to brush along her collarbone. Her fingertips came away wet with blood. She wiped thm off on her shorts with a careless motion, then crossed her arms, still leaning on the wall. “Bloody bastard,” she muttered, glaring at him. He didn’t so much as spare her a glance, and she rolled her eyes.

Nairi shifted her weight, waiting for one of them to speak. At the continued silence, she huffed and said shortly, “Am I just supposed to accept this utter bullshit about elves with no explanation, then?”

“It is true,” Tauriel said levelly in reply. “We are elves of the Woodland Realm, and---”

“There is no such thing,” Nairi said impatiently and a little desperately, “as elves.”

“Not for you. Not anymore,” she returned, a little sadly. “But there used to be. Elves, dwarves, Hobbits--how do you think these legends began? Races you think of as mere fantasy used to walk this world alongside humans, thousands of years before your birth.

“But Men began to fear them too much, and killed them. Those that survived fled back to Middle-earth, and the walls between the worlds were closed. Not before, however, half-elves were born. Dwarf and Hobbit blood has died out in this world, and you are the last alive with the blood of the Elves.”

“I have a brother.” Nairi said, then, “I think.” She hadn’t seen or heard from Liam in fifteen years. God only knew what her--what Varya had done to him by now.

Tauriel offered an apologetic sort of shrug. “You’re the only one.”

Nairi tried not to think about what this meant for Liam. If he was even alive. “Okay. Okay, fine. Assuming I choose to believe you, what does this have to do with anything? And if you’re elves from…” she hesitated, “Middle-earth, then how the fuck did you get here anyway if the, uh, ‘walls between the worlds’ are sealed or whatever the hell you said?”

Tauriel looked uncertainly in Thranduil’s direction. “Lord Thranduil brought us here. We…” she trailed off.

“Okay, right.” Nairi said sarcastically. “Just chalk it up to magic, I suppose.”

“With the assistance of a number of magic-wielders, I followed the trace of Elvish blood to you,” Thranduil supplied coolly.

_ Of course you did. Bloody bastard. _ “Yes, fine.” she snapped.  _ “Why?” _

“We are immortals, Nairi.” Legolas explained. “But we are not wizards. We do not have the magic that you do. We cannot stop our enemy. You can.”

“Your enemy.” she echoed disbelievingly.  _ This has got to be some kind of fucked-up joke. _

“He is an unpleasant mortal man, doomed to die and yet he believes he can make himself a god.”

“And I suppose, along with all the wizards and elves and dwarves that are totally real, that’s possible too?” Nairi mocked. “Bullshit.”

“He has extended his life and vitality beyond what is normal,” Legolas conceded. “Collecting the lives and power of others. But his body is mortal, he will burn himself out eventually.”

“Uh-huh. Right,” Nairi nodded along mockingly, feigning comprehension. “Obviously.”

“Mithrandir--” Legolas paused, wincing as Tauriel shot him a warning look. “We believe you may be the only one strong enough to match him.”

Nairi couldn’t help it. She blinked once, twice, and then burst out laughing. Thranduil’s contempt-filled icy glare sobered her quickly enough, and she subsided with one last snort. “I don’t know who the fuck you think I am,” she said derisively, “but, short’v coming after him with that,” she nudged the fallen switchblade with the toe of her boot, “there’s absolutely fucking nothing I can do. And if that did fuck all against you, I’m pretty sure I’m no help.”  _ Thank god,  _ she thought privately. 

“You control the air around you.” Thranduil spoke coldly. “It is why you decimated your yard; every other thing in your past that has destroyed itself happened when you unconsciously compressed the air around it. Learn to control it,” something sparked in his eyes, “and you may well be the only thing that can save my people.”

“I don’t believe you.” Nairi blurted back stubbornly, her palms slick with sweat. She couldn’t stand to hear them continue, even if it meant lying. Lying because, in spite of it all, she  _ did  _ believe them. Thranduil had been superhuman when he caught her hand. Nobody could have moved that fast, could have been that strong, unless they weren’t human. And she’d always known on some level that there was something different about her. Something she’d tried to beat into submission so many times over the years, but that always came back, this time uprooting trees.

But it would mean that Varya had been right about her. Would mean that she had choked her father to death over a petty fight. Would mean that every despicable thing she’d told herself she wasn’t responsible for was true. And so Nairi railed against these elves and their words with every ounce of childish stubbornness she had.

“What other explanation makes sense?” Tauriel countered. She gestured gracefully toward Nairi’s ruined front yard. “How did this happen to you, and only to you, if not by magic?”

“Magic is for children’s stories.” Nairi insisted, a trace of desperation in her voice. “It’s not real. It’s not fucking real and elves don’t exist and I don’t have some freakish power and you are delusional!” Her voice had risen to a shout, her hands clenched into fists. “You are not elves and I am just a woman and  _ I didn’t fucking kill my father! _ ” Nairi’s wild mane of hair was falling into her too-pale face, some tangled strands in her mouth, and she looked rather like a raving madwoman.

With that final, desperate cry, the knot of panicked anger in her chest seemed to explode, and not only in the form of words. Nairi could  _ see  _ the translucent ripple in the air, flying outward from her in a growing circle, knocking her back into the wall and making even the elves stumble slightly as it passed through them. Wind whipped hungrily at all of them, the walls trembled as though with a violent clap of thunder, and then it was gone. Dead silence reigned, and then Nairi turned on her heel and ran for the bathroom. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Adar: Father (Elvish)


	4. Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a free haircut and a great deal of unsolicited advice.

For the second time that day, Nairi found herself hurling her guts up, trembling, too much in shock to even think about keeping her hair out of her face. She was shaking all over, sweat glistening on her skin, and it felt unpleasantly like the days of trying to get a whole pharmacy’s worth of drugs out of her system. She vaguely registered hearing the door open, but a would-be snappy threat was cut off when she gagged again, thin white hands gripping the toilet bowl like anemic starfish.

A hand very carefully lifted the hair from her shoulders, barely touching her, but she flinched anyway, gasping raggedly and trying to curl away from Legolas’s gentle presence. He’d removed all of his weapons, evidently in an effort to appear less threatening to her, but all Nairi could think about was the fact that there were Elvish weapons lying somewhere around her house.  _ Oh god. _

He stood quiet until she sighed and flushed the toilet, then let her hair go and seated himself easily against the back of the closed door while she curled her knees to her chest and huddled on the floor a few feet away.

“My father is a great king,” he said quietly, breaking the silence. “Our people revere him.”

_ I don't care _ , Nairi wanted to snap back, but found she didn't have the energy.

“But sometimes he is rather lacking in…” he hesitated.

“Common decency?” Nairi suggested hoarsely, trying and failing to muster up any real venom in her voice. “I don't need you to apologize for him. If that's all you're here for--”

“No, Nairi. I wanted to see if you were alright.”

Nairi let her head fall back against the cupboards, a bitter laugh wrenching from her lips. “Alright? Alright? You goddamn moron , I--I just…” she trailed off. _ I just attacked you all accidentally. I just found out I have some freakish power. I just got threatened by an elf. I just proved I’m the one who killed my father. _ But the words got stuck in her throat, and tears welled up in her eyes instead. She swiped them away angrily, glaring with misdirected anger at the elf who was privy to her loss of control.

“Please get out,” she said weakly. She never said please.

Legolas’s face softened, but he didn't move. “I do not think that being alone will help you, Nairi.”

“Fine, stay.” She said flatly. “But if I choke you to death too and then your father comes after me, I'm bringin’ you back from the dead to kill you again.”

Legolas said nothing to that, instead studying the bathroom with an air of curiosity. Nairi said nothing either, quietly, privately seething that this man-- _ elf _ \--could be so... good. Some part of her almost wanted to trust him, and she hated it.

They sat in silence for quite some time, until Nairi’s foot began to go numb, and, with a quiet curse, she extended it, wiggling the toes inside her boot. Legolas was still watching her contemplatively, and took her movement as a cue to speak. “You cannot hide here forever, you know.”

“I’ll hide here as long as I damn well please,” she shot back immediately.

“It is okay to be afraid. But let us help you.”

“How the hell are you going to help me? Don't you need me to save your sorry asses?”

Legolas sighed, one of his elegant hands absently tracing the seams in the tile.  _ Piano hands _ , Nairi thought mockingly, remembering the way her old Russian teacher used to praise hers.

“We came here for your aid, yes. That does not mean we wish to see you suffer.”

“Oh, thanks,” Nairi said sarcastically, hauling herself to her feet with a grunt. She peered in the mirror hesitantly, wincing. “Well don’t I look like death.”

“Nairi…” Legolas said slowly, watching her half heartedly try to ruffle her unwashed hair. “You said…” he stopped, then asked very quietly, “Who else died?”

Nairi gripped the countertop, tears stinging her eyes all over again. She swallowed them back, then shook her head. “Fuck off,” she spat, but the threat lacked any energy.

Legolas climbed easily to his feet, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “Take a bath, Nairi, and clear your head. Then eat,” his eyes flicked clinically over her skinny frame, “I can see you have not been. You will feel better.”

She sighed. Damn elf was probably right. Nairi nodded at him in the mirror, watching him step up behind her and carefully, gently squeeze her shoulder.

“Nairi,” Legolas said gently, and dared to lay his hands on her thin arms. She fought off an involuntary flinch, and reluctantly met his vibrant blue gaze, watching as his eyes flicked clinically over her in the mirror before returning to look in her eyes. She stood there, letting him take in the thin scar of a knife at her neck, the ugly mark on her shoulder where a bullet had just nicked her skin, the bruised knuckles, the pallor of her skin against the tattoo she could barely remember getting. “I’m sorry for everything that’s happened to you--” he began.

“I don’t want your pity!” Nairi snarled out, only for him to raise his voice over hers.

“--but the past does not have to define your future. You can always decide differently. And you will not be alone, I promise. Help us, and let us help you.”

“That’s a tall order.” she muttered darkly, hopelessness spreading in her chest. She knew what he was trying to say. But didn’t he understand what an insurmountable task he was trying to put in front of her? She was a broken wreck of a woman, a failure, a murderer, a disaster. Starting over was for people who hadn’t done what she had. “What if I want to be alone?” She tossed out spitefully.

“I do not think you do.” He looked at her gently. “Start small,” he suggested. “Bath.” He pointed toward her shower and hesitated. “Or…”

Her lips twitched as she realized he didn’t know what he was looking at, the feeling of amusement a little foreign to her. “It’s called a shower.” Nairi said dryly. “It’s for washing in, but the water falls on you like a...warm rain? Fuck, I don't know. It's a shower. How the hell do you explain a shower?”

His eyebrows shot up, but he merely shrugged and said, “Shower, then,” and let himself quietly out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Nairi stood there for several long minutes, looking between her reflection and the door he had just exited through, and shook her head. If nothing else, she could do with getting her hair under control.

Still with a feeling she couldn't name caught up in her chest, Nairi crossed the bathroom and started the shower.

* * *

As much as she wanted to hate the elf, she had to admit, the shower had helped a bit. Her head didn't ache so much, and there was something to be said for getting clean. Nairi slipped into her clothes and was contemplating a scissors for her hair when a soft knock sounded at the door.

“May I enter?” The woman’s voice. Tauriel.

“Why not?” Nairi tossed back carelessly. She didn't really have a desire to see anyone at the moment, but she'd have to talk to them eventually.

The red haired Elven woman let herself in quietly, meeting Nairi’s eyes in the mirror. “I thought perhaps you would appreciate some help with your hair.”

“Actually, I’m just cutting it off,” Nairi replied. The black rat’s nest was brushed irregularly to begin with, but her drunken nightmares and then getting it wet had sealed its fate.

Tauriel reached out and lifted the sodden tangles from where they were soaking the back of Nairi's old t-shirt. “It can still be saved.”

Nairi raised a brow and offered the brush to the woman standing behind her. “You're welcome to try.” She crossed her arms over her chest tightly. Just because this woman was helping with her hair did not mean that she wanted to talk.

Tauriel began to work the brush through the very tips of her hair, her face calm. “My hair has been in a far worse state more than once.”  _ Damn it. _

“Aren't you immortal or whatever? Just shave your head and wait sixty years for it to grow out.” Nairi said grumpily.

Tauriel shook her head, exhaling through her nose in a way that might have been amusement. “It's much easier to brush it out and braid it. My mother taught me that, before she died.”

“My mother threw me out of the house after I killed my father,” Nairi countered darkly, not entirely sure what made her say it.

Tauriel’s fingers tightened in her hair for a moment, then she merely continued working. Though Nairi searched in the mirror, she couldn't find any trace of pity or horror in her eyes. “Aren't you going to say something?” She asked bitterly.

Tauriel looked a little confused. “What do you wish me to say? I'm not going to lavish you in insincere pity to be polite.”

Nairi bit back a comment. She'd misjudged her.

Tauriel paused in her work and leaned forward, her head over Nairi’s shoulder, and met her eyes in the mirror, red hair falling into the black. “My mistakes are numerous, and many are bloody. We have all done things. And your choice is to allow it to consume you, or to right the scales.” She shook her head. “You will always bear the scars on your  _ fea _ , but in time that is all they are.” Tauriel turned her pale hand over, showing Nairi a long, thin white scar running across the back of it. “Scars.”

She lifted some of Nairi’s hair, frowning. “Perhaps I could cut off the ends?” she suggested a little helplessly, an almost-laugh jolting out of Nairi before she could stop it.

“Go ahead.”

As if the exchange had never happened, Tauriel effortlessly switched the topic back. “They tell a story, I think. And we are stronger for them.”

Nairi furrowed her dark brow, a frown creasing her lips. “And what, exactly, is a...  _ fea _ ? ” The word twisted in her mouth, and for all her multilingual background she couldn’t make it sound like Tauriel had.

“ _ Fea _ . ” Tauriel corrected quietly. “An Elven soul.”

Nairi huffed disbelievingly. “What’s left’v mine sure as hell isn’t Elven.”

Tauriel simply shrugged, producing a thin blade from her boot and, with a single, quick, jerk, sliced off the last five inches of Nairi’s hair. “You are born of Elven blood, with the magic of our world running in your veins. You have an Elven soul.”

Nairi blinked, her hand rising almost of its own accord toward the new ends of her hair. “You can’t do that with a knife,” she said without thinking. “I’ve tried.”

Tauriel looked a bit smug. “Elven-forged steel is nothing like the metals on your Earth.”

Nairi blinked, feeling distinctly wrong-footed again. “Okay, then.” 

Nairi stood quiet, refusing to reply while the Elf woman did her hair up quickly in some complex braided fashion, her fingers flying with ease. For fifteen years of her life, nobody but Ean and Sorscha had given a shit, and even that wasn’t saying all that much. Ean did his best, sure, but he had things more important than her to worry about--his extent of caring a lot of the time was making sure she didn’t drink herself to death, really. And Sorscha? A little girl, blind to Nairi’s flaws. She had a big heart--she loved everyone. Nairi welcomed her affection as much as she knew how, but she’d never felt particularly special.

But now? In the span of one hungover, terrifying morning, she’d had three complete strangers trying to tell her she was worth something, each in their own way. Clearly, they didn’t understand that she was beyond saving, but that was beside the point. Nairi waited until Tauriel had tied off her hair, then whirled around, hostility etched on her features. “What do you want?”

A look of confusion crossed Tauriel’s face. “I just wanted to fix your hair. And,” she admitted, “I might have wanted to check to see that you hadn’t drowned in the bath--shower,” she amended quickly. Legolas must have told her.

“No, not my damn hair!” Nairi scoffed impatiently, her accent thicker in anger. “All’v you--what do you expect from this? From actin’ like you care about me? Whatever it is, you're not gettin’ it.”

Tauriel’s face crumpled for a moment, but she fixed her expression for Nairi’s benefit. “Nothing, Nairi, truly. If you agree to aid us in our plight, then we are to be companions for a while, we just want to get better acquainted. And in any case, it is only common decency.”

“I don't want any of your ‘common decency’,” Nairi spat.

Tauriel simply turned, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. “I think you will find us harder to push away than the Men you are used to dealing with.”

_ Damn her. Damn them all. _

Nairi glared at her reflection in the mirror after Tauriel had gone, her rage fueled in part by her discovery that the elf woman had made her hair look more presentable than it had in years. Two thin braids over her ears were gathered back to connect to a larger one at the back of her head, while the rest of her neatened mane hung loose around her shoulders. It looked vaguely Elven, although the effect was largely ruined by her skeletal white features and the look of broken death in her eyes.  _ You are born of Elven blood. _ Tauriel’s words echoed in her ears, and Nairi resisted the urge to rip out the braids.  _ I’m not, I’m not, I’m not. _

The bathroom was suddenly stifling, and Nairi crossed it in three long strides and opened the door. The rest of the house was no better, and Nairi swallowed hard. There were elves and magic and expectations and the shadow of her failure, and the walls were closing in. She studiously ignored the three foreign creatures roaming her living room, and walked out of the house, slamming the door on what sounded like the beginnings of protest from one of them.

Jamming her hands into the pockets of her shorts, Nairi picked a direction at random and started down the sidewalk, unsure of where she was even going. Her mouth twisted into a humorless smile for a moment. How in the hell had her life ever come to this?

* * *

Nairi spent the next few days pointedly avoiding her house. A tense conversation two days earlier had convinced her...houseguests that it was best they stay inside, out of sight of her superstitious neighbors, which left Nairi with the entire town to hide away in. If she was honest with herself, she wasn’t even sure what she was expecting to get from avoiding them---the damn elves had already shown that they were far from the type to just give up and go away. But Nairi had never been particularly good at dealing with her problems healthily, and avoiding them seemed the best of her limited options.

So she slept on benches and concrete and wasted her days in and around the bar. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t done a thousand times before. And she ignored all of Ean’s pointed looks, unwilling to admit what she knew he was thinking. Because try as she might to deny it, Nairi wasn’t the same. Just a little more cautious, more present, more talkative, and less drunk. No longer the woman whose every action seemed like a round of Russian roulette. The elves had woken her up, whether she liked it or not.

“Nairi!” a little voice squealed out delightedly, shaking her from her thoughts. Nairi turned on one heel, light reflecting in her dark eyes, and immediately knelt on the sidewalk, stubbornly squashing her fear at the thought of touching anyone with her hands. A heartbeat later, Sorscha charged full tilt into her open arms, giggling. Nairi lifted the blonde girl into her arms with an exaggerated grunt, perching Ean’s wild child on her hip. “What are we up to today, Sorscha?” she inquired innocently.

“Well,” Sorscha played absently with Nairi’s hair in her tiny, chubby hands. “I was looking for faeries earlier, and now---” her bright blue eyes widened, contrasting with the streaks of dirt that seemed ever-present on her face. “You can help me, now you’re here!” she wriggled in Nairi’s thin arms. “Put me down, Auntie Nairi! We have to go look for the faeries!”

Nairi sighed and set the girl on her feet, seizing her hand quickly to keep her from running off. “Sorscha--”

“Come on, Nairi, please! ” Sorscha’s eyes looked like a sad puppy’s and Nairi sighed.

“How’ve you lived in the same town with Colin this long and still think hunting faeries ‘s a good idea?” she demanded, rolling her eyes.

“I’m not afraid.” Sorscha declared stoutly, a pout on her pink lips.

Nairi huffed. “Of course you’re not. Sorscha, luv, it’s not a good idea to go messin’ around with that sort’v thing. Come on,” she said after a moment of hasty consideration. “Let’s go find Colin, and he’ll tell you all the faerie stories you could ask for.”

Sorscha pouted for a moment, but allowed Nairi to lead her toward the grocery. Ean’s daughter seemed more than a little bit faerie herself sometimes, especially with her complete lack of fear of the supernatural. Nairi had grown up in Ireland before winding up here, and several of her neighbors had too. And even the native Scots had their superstitions. She’d always known that you had to just keep your head down--apologize to the bushes when you prune them, thank the faeries when you pick flowers, don’t wander the woods at night. For the love of all that’s holy, keep out of the faerie rings. But then again, she did have a trio of supposedly noble Elves in her house. She wasn’t sure what that said about her, but she was fairly certain she didn’t want to know that badly.

Inside Colin’s grocery, Sorscha was babbling to the old man excitedly while Nairi leaned against a display of apples, idly watching. That little girl had the entire town wrapped around her finger, and she knew it. Nairi watched Sorscha run off excitedly for a moment with a fond shake of her head, and then Colin approached her.

“I never thought I’d see ye in here,” he said in his old, creaking voice, strong but just as weather-beaten as the rest of him.

“Why? ‘Cause I live on whiskey and pub food?” she snarked at him.

“Because ye were always dead inside.” he replied solemnly, and she shifted her weight to the other foot, uncomfortable. “It’s good ta see yer smile.”

Nairi blinked, realizing belatedly that she had been smiling at Sorscha. She never smiled, not anymore.

She wanted to tell him that Sorscha was the exception, that she was only around in town because she had three creepy ass house guests, that she wasn’t any different, but she knew that wouldn’t be quite true. She wasn’t okay, she was broken and always would be, but fresh air and people and even the little stunt Thranduil pulled with his damn sword had made her feel more alive than she had in a long time. She was loathe to admit it, but she knew it was true.

Nairi looked at Colin for a moment, hesitating, and then blurted out, “Are elves real?”

Colin blinked. “Are ye really askin’ me?”

Nairi winced a little. She’d always scorned his stories, heeded the warnings like any sensible Irish girl, but at least out loud complained that he was off his nut. But she got the sense all the same that he’d seen things.

“Yes.” she said resolutely. “I kind of need to know.”

He cocked his head, then nodded. “Aye, they’re real enough. Ye cannae find ‘em round here anymore, but they’re real. They’re no’ like Sorscha’s faeries though---they’re no’ from here. They came from another world, an’ went back t’ it.”

“What do you mean?” Nairi cursed her voice for sounding so uneasy.

“Legend has it, there were High Elves an’ Wood-elves an’ they used t’ share two worlds with us, ‘til humans got scared an’ chased ‘em off.” Colin replied.

“So they could never come back, right?”

Colin looked her steadily in the eyes, and she swallowed. “Oh, aye, they could come back. I think they will. It jus’ has t’ be for somethin’ worth their time. Legend has it, in some parts, tha’ the Elvenking ‘imself’d come, if he had a reason.”

Nairi pressed her lips together. “Right. Thank you. Sorscha and I need to be going now, I think.” she turned, scanning the produce section. “Sorscha! C’mon, love!”

“Oh, Nairi?”

She turned back to Colin. “What?”

His eyes twinkled. “Watch out for Elven swords. They’re wicked sharp, y’know.”

Her hand went involuntarily to her collarbone. “I’d imagine,” she managed. “Sorscha! Let’s go!” _ He knows. Damn it all, I don’t know how but he knows. _

Sorscha skipped up at that moment, grabbing Nairi’s hand cheerfully. “Are we going to your house, Auntie Nairi?”

“No.” Nairi said quickly. “We’re going to, uh, run by the pub and find your father,” she improvised.

Sorscha looked momentarily disappointed, but started tugging Nairi toward the door anyway. “Okay! We can go see if Daddy has ice cream in the fridge!”

Nairi stopped dead. _ Oh, god _ . “Actually, Sorscha, I...just remembered something. You run along to your Daddy, okay? I need to get some shopping done.” _ Because I left three elves in my house with an empty fridge. Shit. What if there’s a punishment for killing elves? You, Nairi O’Callahan, are well and truly fucked. _

“Not like I wasn’t anyway.” she muttered, throwing a handful of potatoes into a basket.

_ And now I’m talking to myself. Damn it. _

Nairi’s property was still an utter wasteland when she returned to it, but she ignored the strewn debris and marched resolutely to the door.

It was unlocked, and she tried not to think too hard on that as she stepped inside as casually as she could manage. She would make them think she was unbothered if it killed her. Because she was. She was just Nairi, and she didn’t give a fuck about three elves. She didn’t.

Tauriel was sitting on her battered couch, elbows on her knees with a stony expression. She shot to her feet as Nairi closed the door behind her, but not in any kind of relief. No, Nairi thought wearily, the flame-haired woman was full of barely-contained fury.

“I brought some food,” Nairi said hastily. “I didn’t really think about the fridge.”

“We are perfectly capable of finding our own food.” Tauriel said tightly, and then, if possible, her expression grew colder. “And wine.”

Feeling remarkably like a chastened child, and yet still angry, Nairi quietly set the grocery bags on the floor.

“So,” the elven woman said coldly. “After pondering our situation for so long, what have you decided?”

For a moment, Nairi allowed herself to imagine what it would be like if she went with these elves. She could see the world outside this town again, and in doing so make her worthless existence mean something. If she died along the way, at least her life would have been given for something that sounded important.

But she could just as easily kill them, like she’d killed her dad. And even if Thranduil, from what little she’d seen of him, didn’t seem to care if she lived or died, so long as she did what they wanted, Tauriel and Legolas would. And she couldn’t afford to have people care about her . A prison inmate had once said that she was as prickly as barbed wire, and Nairi knew just how ragged her sharp edges could rip people who got too close. That was, of course, if she didn’t suffocate them, or blow them to bits first.

And so she swallowed the tiny, stupid part of herself that almost wanted to dream, and looked apathetically at Tauriel. “I’m not helping you.”

Tauriel’s face tightened, and she jerked her head toward the back door. “Come.”

Slightly fearing for her health if she did not comply, Nairi followed her. “Look, I’m sorry you’ve got some crazy bastard to deal with. But I can’t help you.”

Tauriel let the screen door bang shut behind her, then strode off the short set of steps and stood on the short strip of grass separating them from the back alley, facing away from her. “Are you so selfishly blind? My people are waiting for you. We came here for you.” Tauriel turned, hands braced on her hips. “Because like it or not, Nairi, you are all that is left. There’s no one else. And you do not care!”

“That’s not fair,” Nairi said sharply. “I didn’t ask for this. And I tried to tell you, I’m not a bloody hero, or savior, or whatever the hell you keep trying to make me out to be.”

“All we need you to be, Nairi, is willing.” Tauriel said, more quietly. “We can teach you to use our weapons, and speak our language, and Thranduil can show you how to use your gift. And how to control it.” Her green eyes met Nairi’s, flashing with a challenge. “Don’t be afraid.”

Nairi hesitated. There was safety in not caring, and no expectations from anyone meant no one to let down. And Tauriel was asking her to take a leap of faith she’d avoided for most of her life.

“I still don’t even know who the hell you’re all so afraid of,” she said instead, prompting a slightly guilty expression from the taller woman.

“It is complicated,” Tauriel admitted. “This--” she seated herself on the back steps, and Nairi joined her after a moment of hesitation. “Our enemy crossed into our world hundreds of years ago, by your reckoning. Crossing worlds, Nairi,” she paused. “As more of these passages were sealed, it became more and more dangerous to cross. The attempt drove him mad.”

Nairi nodded once, still listening even if this all sounded so laughably insane to her.

“He believes that all Men belong to a lesser race and must be killed. And he believes that the Eldar must be  _ enlightened _ , and should follow him.”

“Isn’t he a human, though?” Nairi prompted slowly. “Does he even have a name?”

Tauriel shrugged. “If he had one, it is long gone. And while he was born a human, he is similar to you, Nairi, in that Elven blood in his veins have granted him some power. A number of dangerous experiments did the rest. He lives by absorbing the power of my people.” A grimace crossed her face. “They become…” she shook her head. “Enslaved. Under his control entirely, slowly dying while they work to give him an army.” Her voice rose. “He is coming for my people, and he is coming for my King. I can’t protect them. And you are too selfish to try.”

“I’m sorry,” Nairi bit back sarcastically. “I’m still having trouble believing that you’re not just cracked and spouting off nonsense. Besides, if you hadn’t noticed, I have no control of this so-called  _ power _ of mine. I can’t help you anyway.”

“We will teach you,” Tauriel promised, a note of quiet desperation bleeding through her hard tone. “Stop being afraid.”

Nairi just shook her head.  _ Oh, yes I do.  _ “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Shaking her head, she stood, arms tightly crossed over her chest, and went back inside, not daring to look at Tauriel’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't give up on our hot mess of a protagonist just yet... (but it will get worse). Oops?


	5. Steel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Nairi plays with things with sharp edges.

Nairi gave up on sleeping when the little clock on her bedside table read 1:00. Tauriel’s words had rattled around in her head all day, haunting her with an accusatory glare her brain had added for effect.  _ We came here for you _ . She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that threatened.  _ Am I doing the right thing, Dad? _ He wouldn’t have wanted this life for her, she knew that. But she had to believe he wouldn’t have wanted her to go off on a foolish crusade with elves either.

_ What if they die?  _ Her brain whispered traitorously.  _ You might have saved them, if you were there. _ Any more guilt, she thought, would crack her badly-mended heart in two. But she couldn’t do this.

_ What if you die? _ The darkest parts of her taunted.  _ Isn’t that all you want? You could get killed so easily. _

Nairi groaned aloud and threw the duvet off her body, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and bracing her hands on the mattress on either side of her hips. She was barefoot, clad in a tank top and thin sleep shorts, vulnerable and keenly aware that she wasn’t alone, though she didn’t know where the elves were sleeping. The brash side of her declared she didn’t give a damn anyway, and she slid off the bed, the shock of cold hardwood on her feet chasing away the last traces of fatigue. She really had no idea where she was going, she just knew she had to get out.

Her footsteps were silent as she padded out into the living room, pushing her tangled hair out of her face. She blinked in surprise at the empty couch, having assumed that one of her...guests would have commandeered it for sleeping purposes.

Nairi was nearly in the kitchen when the glint of silver caught her eye, and she turned, curiosity getting the best of her. Lying conspicuously on the floor of her living room was the sword Thranduil had held to her throat, the flat of the blade reflecting moonlight from the window. One side of the blade was dulled and decorated, carvings in the silver and a pattern of slots showing her hardwood beneath it. Nairi cocked her head, her brows drawing in confusion. A pierced blade would be more likely to shatter, hardly a wise choice for some great warrior king.

Really, the more she looked at it, the more bizarre it looked. Nairi knew she was no great weapons expert, but one of her old dealers had been a tattooed motorcyclist with an unhealthy love for his collectible swords. She knew enough.

Bending cautiously, she reached out and closed her hand around the hilt, a shiver running up her arm at the chilly metal. The hilt was carved too, a truly ostentatious display for a weapon. Nairi straightened, an audible gasp leaving her lips at the sudden weight. Arm trembling with the effort, she succeeded in lifting it in front of her, using her other hand to rest it on. It had a sort of one-sided crossguard, but on the whole it resembled more of a long knife than a sword. A wickedly sharp long knife, she amended, remembering the cut on her collarbone. 

There was no sound, but she knew nonetheless that she was no longer alone. Sword still in her hand, Nairi whirled, a startled noise escaping from her throat while excuses died on her lips. He stood a few feet behind her, larger than life, still and silent while his ice blue eyes flicked rapidly over her.

She privately congratulated herself on having enough sense to set the weapon down, rather than simply drop it, but that was as far as her panicked train of thought went. “I-I’m sorry--”

“Would you like to learn how to use it?” Somehow, even though she’d heard it before, his voice was everything she wasn’t expecting.

The “no” was on the tip of her tongue immediately, but she didn’t give voice to it. What she wanted was to hide, and make them all go away, and what she wanted was to take the sword and learn, and what she wanted was to wreck the world and burn. So she bit her lip, and said nothing.

Thranduil continued to regard her silently, a carelessness in his expression that annoyed her, and the words were out before she could stop them. “You sure you wanna give me a weapon?”

He gave the tiniest roll of his eyes. “You cannot use it. You can barely lift it.”

_ That’s it. _ Nairi shook her wild hair back from her face, glaring. “Then show me,” she ground out, only realizing at the barest hint of a smile on his lips in reply that she’d somehow done exactly as he wanted. 

“Come,” Thranduil inclined his head, curtain of blond hair moving perfectly, and without another word was out her front door in a handful of long strides. Nairi followed indignantly, still barefoot and now even colder in the night air, sword by her side in one hand.

“Are you mental?” she demanded. “It’s the middle’v the goddamn night!”

He said nothing, once again, merely picking through the wreckage of her yard to a mostly undamaged section. Not for the first time, Nairi found herself thanking the heavens that her house was far enough on the edge of town not to have any neighbors directly across the street.

Somehow, without her noticing, he’d brought outside a second matching sword, and her eyebrows shot up in spite of herself. Very few people could actually dual wield, from what she understood, and if these both belonged to him…

“You know these can shatter?”  _ Are you entirely sure you didn’t bring your decorative swords by accident? _

“Not Elven swords,” he replied simply. A heartbeat later, he barked out, “Defend yourself!” and then his blade was flying toward her, faster than her eye could track.

Nairi dodged on instinct, feeling the silver weapon whistle past her, heart racing. “Son’v a bitch! The hell’re you thinkin’?”

“You evidently know about the construction of these weapons, and yet you cannot use them,” he mused, uncaring, as he lifted the blade again.

By some miracle, Nairi dragged the sword up to block it, the untempered blow jolting up her arms and knocking it from her hands.

“Pick it up.”

She glared, her arms trembling from the weight, but complied. She had a feeling that pissing off the elf king while he had a sword was probably a bad idea.

“You were explaining,” he prompted, swinging effortlessly again, and Nairi swore violently and ducked.

“I wasn’t, actually,” she said breathlessly, “but my old dealer liked swords.” She halfheartedly swung toward him, and he knocked it away easily. “Now are you going to teach me anything or just keep playing with me? You know bloody well I don’t know what I’m doing.”

She had a split second to regret her words, and then he lunged.  _ Damn it.  _

***

Nairi groaned aloud as she came back to consciousness, the bright sunlight assaulting her still-closed lids. She raised one arm to throw over her eyes, then immediately changed her mind and let it fall again, every muscle screaming in protest at the motion. “Damn it,” she muttered, letting her eyes flicker open.

She’d crashed on the couch as the sun was coming up, her body and her pride equally and thoroughly bruised, and surrendered herself to sleep and fantasies of making Thranduil suffer for what he’d put her through. Another groan left her lips as she thought back on the night, and she sat up stiffly, swearing.

He hadn’t been easy on her, damn him. But she knew that it was just as much her fault. Thranduil was, quite literally, superhuman, a swordsman with hundreds of years of practice, facing off against the underweight former junkie who managed two meals on a good day. Nairi heaved a sigh and, with a wince and muffled yelp, very slowly shuffled into the bathroom. Pushing her hair out of her face gingerly, she met her own eyes in the mirror, and, inexplicably, they filled with tears. Her dad’s eyes, but haunted, looking back at her from a face so wrecked she could barely recognize it. 

“I’m thirty years old,” she whispered thickly, the sound too loud in the silent space. Her mouth twisted bitterly, staring at herself.  _ And I have nothing to show for it. _ Nothing but the scars on her arm from all of those needles full of drugs. Nothing but the skeletal frame of a woman who didn’t care enough to eat. Nothing but hopeless, haunted eyes, because she was beginning to think that she’d gone too far down the rabbit hole to have any hope of coming back.  _ Weak, untrained. Unstable. _ Thranduil’s scathing assessment of her rang in her ears.

“Sure as hell made you proud, didn’t I, Dad?” she muttered angrily, searching through her bathroom cabinets for the makeup she’d bought at Sorscha’s begging. She still had her pride, and she’d be damned if she’d walk out there without doing something to cover up the black-and-blue evidence of her midnight ass-kicking.

She looked almost as bad as the time the ex-military jackass from jail had beaten the shit out of her. Objectively, Nairi was almost impressed. But more than impressed, she was angry. Angry at the ice-cold Elf king for his detached non-lesson, angry at the elves altogether, angry at her mother and her stupid power and at everything in her life that had been so goddamn unfair. Unfair. Something stirred in her memory at that.

_ “It’s all so unfair, Dad!” Nairi angrily swiped the tears on her cheeks. “I worked for that internship-- me! And they gave it to that stupid bitch--” _

_ “Hey.” Donovan looked at her sternly. “You’re only fifteen, Nairi, slow down. There’ll be time.” _

_ She opened her mouth to protest again, but he lifted a finger to stop her. “But, when something doesn’t go your way, you’ve got two choices. You can sit around and complain about it, or you can get up and make something happen. If you don’t like the cards life dealt you, angel, then get up and make them give you a new hand.” _

The memory made her wince at how stupid and entitled she’d been. But she understood what he’d been trying to tell her.“Okay, Dad,” Nairi whispered. “I’m listening now.”

She gave herself one last hard look in the mirror she’d almost smashed so many times, and then she stormed out of the bathroom like a whirlwind. If she didn’t do it now, she wasn’t going to do it at all.

She brushed past a very startled Legolas, but he stubbornly followed her to the doorway of her bedroom, watching her in puzzlement while she went down on her knees and dug through enough of the chaos on the floor of her closet that she could actually walk inside.

“Nairi…”

“Hold on,” she bit out, “I’m busy being pissed.”

“Nairi!” He pressed, more insistently. 

She hauled her head back out of the closet, sitting on her heels, and met his gaze. “What?”

“You told Tauriel you were not going to do this. Then my father takes you out to teach you to fight. What are you doing?”

“More like, taught me to take a beating,” Nairi huffed. “Which I already knew.” She paused, shaking her head at him. “You know what? I don’t know what I’m doing. But I know that I’m fucking pathetic right now and I say enough.” Her gaze was flinty. “There used to be a time when I was strong enough to put the fear o’ God into men if I wanted.” She cast a disgusted look downward at her black-and blue bruises, her blistered hands, the cut on her shoulder with dried blood streaking down her arm. “Now I am thirty years old and I can’t hold a sword. I meant what I told Tauriel--I won’t do this.”

Nairi dove back into the closet and reemerged with a black handgun, which she tossed up onto her bed carelessly. “But I’m going to learn how to kill a man properly again, all the same.”

Legolas crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “I mean no offense, Nairi, but why do you care about anything now?”

She shrugged and stepped over a pile of clothes to walk fully inside the closet. “I don’t know,” she called back brazenly. “Handy skill though, loppin’ people’s heads off.”

She surveyed the haphazard stacks of clothes, looking for something that might actually improve her appearance, if that was even possible. She wasn’t particularly interested in heavy sweatshirts or any of her likely unwashed ragged tank tops, and she was just about to give up when something in the corner caught her eye. Nairi smirked, imagining the look on Legolas’ face when she walked back out wearing that . Hell, the looks on all their faces. She stripped off her tank top carelessly, adding it to the mess covering the floor, and reached for the black leather.

Dixie had bought if for her years ago, insisting she’d look good in it, but Nairi had only ever worn it a few times before ending up in a prison jumpsuit again. She pulled it out occasionally when she was feeling good, but it had been collecting dust for too long now.

It was more of a corset than a top, really, crafted of black leather with a plunging neckline and a silver zipper running vertically down the front. It was roomier than she remembered, and Nairi fastened the ribbon that ran halter-style behind her neck with an internal wince. Having a waist too small for a corset was probably a sign that she ought to start eating something. A pair of once skin-tight bootcut blue jeans replaced her sleep shorts, and she tucked the second gun she’d forgotten was under them into the waistband as an afterthought.

She surveyed herself in the hanging mirror and bit her lip. It showed off the bruises in even sharper relief, highlighting every time Thranduil had hit her with the flat of the blade, every time she’d hit herself, or fallen. Without any kind of sleeve, the slice down her shoulder from when she’d quite literally run into his weapon looked uglier, worse than it was. She frowned, and then turned on her heel and walked away from her reflection.

Her feet were still bare, and she certainly didn’t have the same effect as she would have with a pair of sky-high heels, but Legolas flung a hand up over his eyes anyway as she reentered the main room, and she laughed.

“We can speak when you are dressed,” he said quickly, turning away, and she snorted.

“Eejit, I am dressed. I’m not from whatever elf-land where everyone’s modest and proper as fuck. And hell, man, this is more than I was wearing a minute ago.”

His one blue eye cautiously reappeared, and he stared at her incredulously. To his credit, all of the staring was directed firmly at her face.

She smirked and patted his arm as she walked past. “Ought to send the Scottish boys to wherever you’re from.”

She wondered for a moment how long it was going to last this time, energy and motivation and no need to black the world out with alcohol, but after a heartbeat Nairi figured it was better not to dwell on it. She rolled her eyes.  _ Not bipolar my ass.  _ Her concerns had been dismissed out of hand when she brought them up to the doctor who’d evaluated her in prison, but she wasn’t crazy. Or maybe she was, and that was the problem. 

Tauriel was coming from the bathroom when Nairi breezed past, and a short bark of laughter escaped her as she followed her into the kitchen. “Did you terrify Legolas?”

She opened the fridge and nodded, wincing as she bent over. “Yep. I was astounded by his--- fuck, my back ---ability to only look at my face.”

“He knows I would shoot him,” Tauriel replied, deadpan, and Nairi carried her bread and sliced meat to the counter with a smile on her face.

“You’re really not half bad for a freakish immortal elf woman.”

“And you are much less trying sober,” Tauriel returned smartly, apparently over her earlier anger. Still, Nairi wouldn’t put it past her to bring it up again.

Nairi snorted and opened the package of meat, lifting out a few slices to put on her bread. Astonishingly, her stomach growled, and she blinked in surprise. When was the last time she was actually hungry? Maybe this time  _ would  _ be different. She gestured at the sandwich, looking at her companion. “You want one?”

Tauriel shook her head, turning automatically as she noticed Thranduil standing in the doorway, one of his swords in hand. Nairi slapped the top piece of bread on with more force than was strictly necessary, eyebrow lifting as he surveyed her. “Okay, well he didn’t learn it from you.”

“What?” he snapped, eyes finally meeting hers, though the expression in their icy blue depths was unreadable.

“Nothin’, Casanova.” She smirked wickedly. From the moment she’d met him, he’d had the upper hand, and now it was her turn. And damn it, she was going to enjoy this moment, even if it was about her breasts.

She could see the question on his lips, but instead he said coldly, “Come.”

Nairi scowled and stuffed a bite of sandwich indelicately into her mouth. “I’m eating ,” she mumbled around it. “‘M not wasting lunch just so you can beat the shit out of me again.”

Thranduil’s eyes were flinty, and he glared at her fiercely for a moment. Then, he looked abruptly at Tauriel. “Give her your knives and see if she’s capable of hitting anything with them---even the ground,” he bit out, and strode out of the room, his boots thumping ominously.

A moment later, Nairi heard the back door close, and looked at Tauriel in alarm. “People’re gonna flip their shit if they see him outside, god dammit!”

Tauriel shook her head. “He is not stupid. Besides, there is a path to the woods from the back of your home. I think he is going there, not into the town.”

Nairi sighed, shoving the last bites of her lunch into her mouth. “Is he always such an ass?”

Tauriel made a muffled choking noise and blinked at Nairi for a moment. After a pause, she managed, “I don’t know that saying so is wise.”

Nairi shrugged. “I’m not very good at keeping my mouth shut.”

“I’ve noticed,” the woman mused wryly, then folded her arms and looked at Nairi. “Nairi, what is this? What are you doing?”

Nairi blinked. “Eating?”

“With us.” Tauriel clarified sternly. “You swore and drank and attacked us and now what? New clothes and casual conversation?”

Nairi merely shrugged again. If she was honest, she didn’t know what she was doing either. “I just decided to,” she said simply. “Felt like I should.”

“Does this mean you’ve changed your mind?” Tauriel raised one brow delicately, watching Nairi actually throw the supplies for her sandwich back into the fridge.

Nairi shook her head quickly, hair flying around her face. “No. And I’m sorry, I’m not going to.” She stubbornly squashed the twinges of guilt that threatened.

Tauriel’s lips tightened fractionally, but all she said was, “Come. It will be easier to practice outside.”

“You know there’s no point, right? I’m not going to get any better.”

Tauriel fell into step beside her, both of them heading for the back door. “I swore my life to my King, swore to protect him, and under his rule I obey him.” She looked steadily at Nairi. “But that does not mean I am bound to lie for him.”

“What are you talking about?” Nairi huffed, hopping down the cement back steps as quickly as possible, the heated surface burning her bare feet.

“He is a great leader. But no elf ever said he was a great teacher.” Tauriel shot her a meaningful look. “I don’t promise I am either, but you cannot base your skills off of sparring with Lord Thranduil.”

Nairi did her best to pretend that she was unaffected by the elf woman’s continued belief in her, and scuttled onto the grass beyond the back alley before her feet roasted.

***

Tauriel’s daggers were of the same design as the swords, with cutouts along one side, but these knives were curved and wickedly sharp on both edges. Nairi shifted one in her hand, testing the weight and her grip. They glinted in the sunlight, and one cautious poke of the tip split her skin with ease. Nairi examined the pad of her forefinger curiously, watching the blood well up cherry-red and then shaking the drop onto the dirt impatiently.

Tauriel ignored her prodding at the weapons, and came to stand beside her. “What do you know about using these?”

“Use the sharp end,” Nairi sassed in reply, “and aim for the important bits.”

The Elven woman let out a long-suffering sigh and took the blade from Nairi’s hand. “Look.”

They were standing out a little ways beyond the back alley, just on the edge of the woods bordering the town. Tauriel gestured with her left hand toward a tree some twenty yards away, and hurled the dagger with her right. It spun end over end in a dizzying, enthralling line before thumping into a knot she was only just now noticing on the tree. It stuck there, buried to the hilt, and Tauriel jogged gracefully over to retrieve it. 

“Take this one,” she said upon returning, not even slightly winded, and Nairi grudgingly accepted the knife. Tauriel produced the other one, standing opposite her. “You’ll learn to throw them eventually. I merely wanted you to see the precision and balance. These are nothing like the little thing you tried to use on us.”

“That little thing actually saved my life several---”

“Focus,” Tauriel reprimanded firmly. 

“Right.”

“Attack me.” Tauriel prompted. “Show me what you can do. But,” she cautioned quickly. “They are sharp, be careful.”

“Worried I might kill you?”

“I’m more inclined to worry about you hurting yourself.” Tauriel fired back with spirit, her eyes dancing, and Nairi cursed to herself. She didn’t want to like her, damn it.

“Fuck you,” she instead returned easily.

Tauriel indulged her with a quick half smile, then gestured between them again. “Attack me.”

“Just...attack you?” Nairi blinked.

Tauriel nodded, adjusting her body into a basic defensive stance, and looked expectantly at Nairi.

Well, she certainly had nothing to lose. Nairi launched herself forward, knife poised to strike, and Tauriel rebuffed the attack easily, the weapon vibrating in her hand from the blocking blow. Shaking out her wrist, she aimed a slice at Tauriel’s side, again getting knocked away like she was nothing. The force of Tauriel’s push sent her back a few steps, and a frustrated groan left her lips.

“Do it again.” Tauriel said calmly. She was neither indifferent nor impatient, though, and she’d already taught Nairi more about holding the damn thing than Thranduil had. Maybe, just maybe, there was something to be gained from this after all.

Again and again she stabbed and sliced and shoved at the red haired woman, and again and again she was pushed away like a bothersome child. Even resorting to dirty street fighting tactics left her on her ass instead of the other way around. “I can’t do this.”

“Stop thinking.” Tauriel replied. “The more you plan, the more you slow down, the easier it is for me to stop you. Trust your instincts.”

This time, it was Tauriel who attacked first. She was flashing steel and flying hair and fire and not for the first time, Nairi felt the full weight of her own inadequacy. She stumbled over a patch of uneven ground, breathing heavily, breaking a sweat, the ringing as their blades collided loud in her ears. “Damn it!” she hissed aloud, feeling the nerves in her arm jolt at a particularly hard blow.

_ Trust your instincts _ . Tauriel lunged at her face with the knife, and even though Nairi knew logically that she wouldn’t actually slice her head open, she reacted anyway. An Irish curse flying from her lips, she ducked the swipe, seized Tauriel’s outstretched arm, and angled forward to slam her shoulder against her leather-armored chest. In a move based mostly on muscle memory, she straightened, sending Tauriel flying over her shoulder and onto the ground behind her.

She somersaulted to absorb the impact and stood easily, a smile gracing her lips. “That was good.” Her eyes flashed, and then she lunged. “But I can still kill you.”

She held the knife to Nairi’s throat for a heartbeat, grabbing her wrist in a steel grip with the other hand, then dropped her arm and relaxed. “Until your enemy is knocked out or dead you can’t stop. The next time you try throwing me around, turn around and have your weapon ready to finish me off. Understand?”

Nairi nodded shortly.

“That was good. Again.” Tauriel’s stance was defensive, waiting for her to make the first move.

Nairi narrowed her eyes, sizing up the woman and her abilities. She shifted her grip on the dagger, tried to think back on every graceful, deadly move she’d seen the elves do so easily.

She took a step forward to attack, and whipped her head around, frozen, as a scream split the air. High pitched, terrified. A child’s scream.

For once she was faster than Tauriel. Her dagger was in the dirt and she was ten feet down the alley before the other woman had even begun to move.

_ “Sorscha!” _


	6. Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which cowboys everywhere are represented poorly and Thranduil is a demanding sassy little shit.

Her body was on autopilot. Nairi’s heart thundered, the dull pounding of her still-bare feet on the pavement matching as she sprinted, heedless of the sharp rocks occasionally stabbing at her calloused soles. _Sorscha, Sorscha, Sorscha._

The gun slid in her waistband when she backed up suddenly to turn a corner she’d nearly missed, reminding her that she’d shoved it there to free her hands. Nairi’s hand reached behind her and closed around it without her ever slowing down. It had been a while since she’d been in a street fight like this, but she still remembered enough.

“Nairi!”

 _Shit_ . Tauriel, all Elven ears and medieval warrior clothes, was chasing her down the middle of Main Street. She wasn’t going to get to Sorscha, because Colin was going to kill her. God _fucking_ damn it, Tauriel. She’d hear about it later, she knew, but Sorscha needed her right now.

She was so focused on just running that she almost plowed straight into them. Skidding frantically to a stop that had her slightly battered feet complaining, her eyes took in the scene in front of her. The American cowboy who’d bought her a drink, and Sorscha. One of his callused, tanned hands was pinning her tightly back against him by the throat, the other held a gun to her head. In the corner of her eye, Ean was frozen on the sidewalk. He must have threatened to shoot her if he got too close.

Nairi didn’t even blink at the gun he now leveled between her eyes instead. It wasn’t an unfamiliar situation by any stretch of the imagination. Around her, she was vaguely aware of more people arriving, coming as close as they dared, but her focus was solely on the little girl who meant so much to her. Sorscha was really the only damn thing left in this world she cared about, and she’d die before she saw harm come to Ean’s daughter.

“Sorscha, allanah, your dad’d kill me if you repeat any’v this, so probably don’t, okay?”

Sorscha didn’t even blink, too paralyzed by the situation to react. She looked so small in the bastard’s grasp, his hands dwarfing her, the dark tan of his skin highlighting the chalk-white of hers.

Nairi’s eyes narrowed, and she planted her bare feet on the burning black pavement and put her own gun up to aim at his chest, above Sorscha’s head. “Let her go, you motherfuckin’ son’v a bitch, or I swear to god I’ll put enough holes in you that Ean can use ya for a sieve, which I’m sure he’d love.”

“He said you’d come.” He replied tonelessly, his grip on both Sorscha and the gun unwavering.

“Who said?” Nairi spat through clenched teeth.

Her blood chilled when he laughed. _Okay, psychopath in a cowboy hat._

“He’s coming for you.”

“Who is, you absolute fucking wanker?” she growled, her finger hovering over the trigger.

He laughed again, and she saw his grip tighten on Sorscha. “Oh, fuck this,” Nairi muttered. “I’m not fucking around.” Unflinching, Nairi pulled the trigger, her heart sinking at the quiet, yet somehow deafening click. She allowed herself to close her eyes for just a heartbeat. Fuck. Fucking fuck. The loaded one was the one still sitting on her bed.

Sorscha’s innocent eyes were widening further in her fear now, realizing that her “aunt” was in fact weaponless, and she trembled visibly in the man’s grip.

Nairi tried to offer as reassuring a smile as she could, then glared again at her captor. On her left, Tauriel stood with a knife in her hand, looking at Nairi. Almost imperceptibly, Nairi shook her head. This was Sorscha, this was her fight. Besides, the less attention Tauriel drew, the better. 

He had Sorscha, he had that innocent little blue-eyed girl, and she was going to send him straight to the depths of hell. “Still not fucking around, cocksucker.” she grunted. The gun was pointed at her, not Sorscha, and that was fine. Consequences be damned, she charged straight at him, throwing any attempt at using Tauriel’s teachings out the window.

It was all in slow motion, watching his stupid little eyes widen, his finger squeeze the trigger, the bullet coming toward her. Nairi twisted her shoulders out of the way and it sailed past her, and then she raised the empty gun and slammed it into the side of his face with all the strength born of blinding rage. Sorscha fell to her knees when he let her go to collapse onto the pavement himself, but Nairi didn’t turn to her yet. With her bare heel planted between his legs, she bent forward over him, hair falling around her face, reveling in his expression of pain and the bloody cut on his cheek. From the shape of it, she’d broken his cheekbone, and she smiled down at him, fractionally increasing the weight on his crotch. “Gabh suas ort féin,” she said cheerily, then glanced down at her foot and added in perfect English, “if you can.”

She registered Ean lifting up Sorscha and carrying her away, and with the object of her primary concern taken care of, she was free to exact one last piece of revenge. With eyes turning flinty, she brutally stomped down on the zipper to his jeans, then cracked the butt of her gun down on the top of his skull.

Unconscious or dead, she didn’t know, and as she turned and walked away, she found she didn’t care. “Ean!” she called, looking over to where he had carried his daughter. “She okay?”

He nodded briefly, and that was all she needed to see. She could see Sorscha later, and perhaps give into her impulses and hug her until she complained of being squished. For now, she went to stand by Tauriel, who was garnering strange looks from the crowd. “Am I allowed to do that to what-the-fuck’s-his-face?”

Straightfaced, Tauriel replied, “What-the-fuck’s-his-face would kill you before you got close enough. That was helpful, actually, I can work with how you fight. And,” she hesitated. “We need to talk to Thranduil.”

“Oh, god, really?” Nairi scoffed, shoving the useless gun back into the waistband of her jeans. Her veins were still humming with adrenaline, and it wasn’t a drug high or the numbness of drink. She never, ever wanted to do that again, not with Sorscha’s life at stake, but she felt alive. Like for once in her life she had a pulse. She knew she did, it was hammering insistently from the exertion. She hadn’t run that much in years. _Thank fuck I ate that sandwich._

“I am glad the girl is unharmed.” Tauriel was saying, and Nairi hastened to nod, then turned to face the other woman fully as she spoke again. “You would make a very good mother, you know.”

Nairi’s eyebrows shot up and she quickly shook her head, fighting the panic in her stomach at that idea. “Oh, definitely not. Anyway, what did he mean, ‘he’s coming for you’?”

Tauriel hesitated again, her green eyes flickering with something unreadable. “I don’t know, Nairi, not for sure, but he looked dazed enough to be under our enemy’s control. He may have targeted Sorscha to get to you.” She looked away. “But if that is true then we were wrong. And we may have no idea what we’re dealing with.”

“If that’s true, Tauriel,” Nairi replied from between clenched teeth, a fresh wave of rage crashing over her, “then I changed my fucking mind. If that motherfuckin’ scunner touched a hair on her head, I’m in. I’m going to rip the bastard limb from limb, make him wish he’d never been born.”

“What did you say to him?” Tauriel tilted her head in question. “At the end?”

“It’s Irish. I told him to go fuck himself sideways.”

“Enchanting,” Tauriel replied sarcastically, but there was a glint of something like approval in her eyes, and Nairi gave a short nod in response. Tauriel thus far had tended toward mocking her profanity, and Nairi knew she’d never seen Sorscha before in her life, but she knew she would have the woman’s support if she but asked. Female friendship was a bit beyond her, perhaps always would be, but Tauriel would back her with steel. Innocent lives were something every decent person understood.

“Wha’ in the name’v holy _fuck_ \--”

Nairi winced, turning to face Colin, who was striding across the street quite speedily for a man of his age. “Say, Colin--”

“Shut ye geggie, girl, I’ve--”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Nairi exploded in reply, realizing too late that she’d just succeeded in quieting everyone in the street and drawing their eyes to her. She looked to Tauriel, seeking some semblance of permission, and found her with a blank, patient look on her face. Waiting to see what Nairi would do. She sighed.

“Aye, she’s a bloody elf, an’ you all can quit your starin’ at her!” she snapped, her voice dropping automatically into a more accurate Scottish accent. “An’ aye, there’s two more where she came from, an’ they’d all thank you to shut yer bloody gobs about it. Enough?”

She was met with a sea of shocked faces, and returned them with a hard glare. That was enough for most of them, folks that had lived their lives in the most superstitious corners of Scotland, and they just looked at Tauriel for a heartbeat and then nodded and averted their gazes. Colin, however, would not be silent.

He blustered and pointed and ranted, his accent growing heavier and his words slipping into more and more Gaelic and slang, until Nairi had had enough. For all his stories of respect and reverence, he was referring to Tauriel as an it , and she snapped. “She can speak for her damn self, Colin, and for god’s sake quit being such a tube!”

His mouth shut suddenly at her words, blinking at her for a moment, before he looked at Tauriel and bent his head slightly. “Thousand apologies to ye, Lady.” With that, he turned and walked away from them, absorbed by the murmuring crowd, and Nairi rolled her eyes heavenward.

“Sorry ‘bout him.”

Tauriel’s lips were turning up at the edges, and she shrugged. “I think he was more upset that you hadn’t told him than that I was here. Now come, Nairi.” She inclined her head and started walking. “We have work to do.”

Nairi lengthened her stride to catch up, alarm and worry chasing through her. “Such as?”

“We’ll talk when we get back.” Tauriel said simply. “But you can start by telling me why you put on an accent for those people.”

Nairi was caught off guard, not even sure for a minute what Tauriel was talking about. “Oh, that?” she shrugged after a pause. “I came here originally by way of England, had a bit of the stuffy accent, started doing this to get rid of weird looks. Now it’s habit.”

“So you are English?”

“Irish by birth,” Nairi corrected. “And Russian. Not actually English at all, actually.” Noting Tauriel’s persistent look of confusion, Nairi just shrugged. “I’m a genetic mutt with too many languages in my brain.”

Tauriel watched her with thoughtful, calculating eyes as they turned a corner. “If languages are so easy for you, we should teach you Sindarin.”

Nairi’s eyebrows raised. “What, your elfish language?”

“One of them.”

Nairi, cursing her failed social skills once again, had no response to any of that, and stayed awkwardly silent until they reached her little house, easily recognizable by the still-decimated yard.

Tauriel walked inside first, calling out in a language which must have been the aforementioned Sindarin, and Nairi followed tiredly, wondering if there was some merit to the idea of her learning it after all. She was crashing completely now, the adrenaline leaving her and the full effects of her physical exertion hitting her broken body all at once. A headache was beginning to pound in her temples, and she shuffled over to collapse on the couch, wincing at the sting in her cut up bare feet as they dragged across the rug. She laid down with her feet propped up on the armrest and studiously ignored Tauriel’s increasing agitation and Thranduil’s arrival.

Nairi let the Sindarin argument go on above her for a solid quarter of an hour, the pain in her head increasing while she watched them. Tauriel was in every way as fire-red as her hair suggested, standing so close that her shins actually touched the front of the couch. Burying her head under the single, flat pillow, Nairi groaned, then peered cautiously out from under it to see Thranduil, ice-cold and cutting even in a foreign language, looming over the back of the couch with his hands braced less than a foot above her head.

“Alright, enough, god damn it!” she finally roared, sitting up directly between the quarreling elves. “What in the fucking fuck, honestly?” An uncreative response, but in her defense, her head ached like mad. “If you’re going to shout, do it somewhere fucking else, and seeing as it’s probably about me, just do it in fucking English!”

Tauriel sat abruptly down on the cheap coffee table, letting her hands fall onto her knees with a quiet slap. “You need help,” she sighed. “It’s--that is what we’re talking about. You used your power, Nairi, and you didn’t even realize it.”

Nairi’s heart stopped, and she let her head fall back onto the couch, landing on the tips of Thranduil’s fingers and electing to not care. “I---what?”

“The---” Tauriel gestured impatiently. “Your weapon.”

“Gun.” Nairi supplied impatiently. “Shoots bullets. That’s not magic, it’s mechanical.”

Tauriel shook her head. “You were too close, it was too fast. The...bullet should have hit you. You manipulated the air around the bullet, Nairi, you slowed it down.” Seeing Nairi’s face, she quickly held up both hands. “Which is a good thing, you protected yourself and thus saved Sorscha’s life. But I know this power scares you, and you love the girl. You would never have consciously attempted to use it near her, of all people, you know what you did to your property.”

Nairi’s teeth bit hard into her lip, her stomach twisting.

“In this case it harmed no one, but you use it on instinct and out of your control. You don’t know what you’re doing. And if you don’t even know that you’re using it, you cannot--” she broke off. “You may kill our enemy, or you may tear the very world to pieces. You need to learn how to control it. And,” she looked furiously at Thranduil. “If he does not agree to teach you that, I do not know--”

“I don’t want him to teach me.” Nairi interrupted angrily. “I want to put a bullet in the motherfucker’s head, that’s all. I don’t need some creepy power for that.”

Tauriel slumped forward and put her head in her hands, a groan leaving her lips, and then she stood abruptly and walked out of the room. A few moments later, her voice and Legolas’s, again in Sindarin, floated out from the spare room, quieter this time. Thranduil still stood behind her, unforgivingly silent.

Nairi let herself fall sideways onto the couch cushions, eyes stinging with unshed tears that she couldn’t even give a real reason for. The stress of the day, the thought that she could have hurt Sorscha, the ache in her head, the goddamn elves, it was all getting to her, and she was so far out of her depth. She wanted a drink, some silence, and a chance to go back to hating herself in peace, but that was never going to happen, not now, and she frowned, her forehead wrinkling up.

She’d almost forgotten about the Elvenking when he spoke again, and she shivered uncomfortably at the idea that he’d just been standing there, watching her, all this time.

“You do need it. Tell Tauriel I will teach you how to use your power.”

That had her shooting upright, stumbling to her feet to face him, shaking her head and madly running her hands through her hair. “No. No. You don’t get to---I’m---I won’t. You hear me? I fucking won’t.” She could feel her chest tightening in panic, her hands shaking at the mere thought of ever touching that power again, and she fisted them in her hair. _Get a grip_. She was well on the verge of a breakdown, she could feel it, and she needed this over and done with before she lost her shit in front of him.

“I do not care if you pride yourself on being difficult,” he snapped out coldly, “this is not negotiable.”

She swallowed reflexively against her dry throat, jaw clenched and lips quivering. “Don’t you---I---I could kill you!” If nothing else, he had to have some sense of self-preservation. Heartless bastard he may be, but surely he’d want to save his own neck?

Instead, he looked almost amused. He was watching her the way one watched a tiny, fluffy kitten hissing at them, and god, she wanted to get her hands around his stupid throat. She resisted the childish urge to stamp her foot at him as he spoke.

“I think that is a bit beyond you, don’t you?”

Smug, arrogant, condescending bastard! She searched for a cutting reply, but came up empty, and could only glare uselessly back at him while he claimed the upper hand yet again. He watched her with eyes like chips of ice, pale blue and unfeeling, and it felt somehow like he was cutting right through her.

For a moment it was a silent standoff, made all the more infuriating by his unfailing ability to treat her like she was absolutely worthless, and then he concluded dismissively, “I’ll start with you tomorrow.”

She could feel her breathing catch at his words, and in her mind’s eye, saw her father hit the floor all over again. _No_.

“Fuck you.” She hated how her voice trembled. Nairi turned on one battered heel and stalked into her bedroom, just managing to slam the door before her knees hit the floor and she gave up on fighting it, surrendering to the fear and exhaustion of one of her more horrific panic attacks in fifteen years.

* * *

She didn’t know how much time had passed when a soft knocking on her door had her reluctantly peeling herself off the floor. “What?” she barked out, her voice hoarse.

“Nairi, may we speak to you?” Legolas called out hesitantly.

She reached for the door handle, then glanced down at herself and paused. “Hold on,” she ordered scratchily.

She was sore all over as she shuffled to her closet and at random pulled out a different pair of jeans and her lone pair of heeled black boots. Her feet hurt like a mad bastard, yes, but she’d be damned if she was going to face off against Thranduil again without at least a couple more inches in her favor. “Damn elves are too damn tall,” she muttered to herself, bending carefully over to zip up the shoes. Nairi whipped her discarded pants into the back of the closet in a ball, then crossed back over and yanked the door open. “What?”

Legolas looked at her cautiously, then inclined his head towards the living room. “We have been thinking.”

“And?” she snapped impatiently. “Get to the point.”

“The incident with the girl was unexpected. Tauriel went to get answers.”

“Get...where?”

A foreign yelp reverberated, and Nairi’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you torturing that son of a whore in my house?”

Legolas winced, and he held up his thumb and forefinger centimeters apart. “Little bit.”

Nairi sighed. “Great.” She pushed past him impatiently and followed the sounds of Tauriel’s hard voice and muffled yelping until she reached the kitchen.

Sorscha’s kidnapper was seated on a chair in the middle of the room, Tauriel playing carelessly with one of her knives while she bent over him, demanding and unyielding. Thranduil was a silent presence in one corner, arms crossed, watching.

“So?” Nairi said impatiently, announcing her presence.

Tauriel didn’t spare her a glance. “His mind is controlled.” she said grimly.

Nairi’s breath caught. “W-what?”

Tauriel shook her head bitterly. “Apparently human pawns are in play now.”

“So this means that---”

“He doesn’t know.” Tauriel finished dismissively, and Cowboy Psychopath glared rather blankly from the chair. 

Nairi glared right back, and walked forward until she was directly in front of him, gently inserting herself in front of Tauriel. “Don’t fuck with me.” she told him flatly. “You know more than you’re telling her.”

“Nairi,” Tauriel protested. “You cannot torture out of him what he does not remember.”

Nairi’s eyebrow lifted. “Watch me.” She turned her attention to the prisoner in her kitchen, her eyes flicking over his face. “Trust me,” she said almost cheerfully, “I’m scarier than her.”

Nairi’s lips twitched at the sound of a quickly stifled noise of indignation, and she added, “She’s got morals. I’ve got heels on. Besides, I don’t think you’ve paid nearly enough for what you did to Sorscha.”

“I followed orders.” he muttered sullenly, and Nairi leaned forward, braced her hands on the chair arms.

“And who ordered you?”

“I followed orders,” he repeated, and there was something so obviously vacant behind his eyes. She was beginning to understand what Tauriel was on about with this ‘mind control’ bollocks. Pain, though, tended to be a good wake-up call.

Nairi took a step back, threw her foot up between his legs and braced the heel on the chair. She smiled wickedly at his cringe, and kicked out, sending the cheap dining chair over backward. Before he could move, she planted the heel on his chest. “Answer me!”

“Nairi--” Legolas started, and she cut him off with a glare over her shoulder.

“Answer me, you filthy shitbag.”

His stupid, ugly face registered fear now, and pain from where his head had collided with the tile floor, and she shifted, putting a bit more weight on the foot on his chest, stabbing the sharp heel against his skin.

He made a sudden, strangled gasping noise--fear, not pain. Nairi lessened the pressure of her heel and peered down at him curiously. “You back with us?”

Cowboy Psychopath’s eyes turned a sudden, unnatural white. “ _Thel nin est pant. Aer est hir nin, caun en pan Eldar.”_

Nairi’s face scrunched in confusion, and she jumped as an arrow whizzed past her leg. It hit home in the man’s eye with a disgusting squelch, and blood began to drip onto her kitchen floor. 

She whirled on Legolas, but it was Thranduil with his son’s bow in his hands. “What,” she paused for emphasis, “the _fuck_?”

All three elves were equally pale, and she was evidently alone in condemning Thranduil’s actions. 

“He has seen your face,” Thranduil said softly, grimly.

“Well, duh,” Nairi threw her arms up. “I would think so; I was the one who beat up the bloody bastard. Who is now bleeding on my floor.” She grimaced. “I repeat, what the fuck! I’ll just clean up, shall I?”

She crossed the room, reaching into the cupboard beneath the sink for a rag and a half-empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide. 

“He was far-seeing,” Thranduil ignored her little rant, handing the bow off to Legolas as he continued. “Our enemy saw through his eyes, to you.”

Nairi paused momentarily, and then resumed wiping up the blood still pooling around the dead body. “Well, I hope my ugly mug gives him plenty of nightmares,” she tossed back carelessly, refusing to acknowledge the tendril of cold fear in her belly. Compartmentalization was her speciality, and it wasn’t like there wasn’t already plenty of weird to go around. There was a long pause, and then she continued. “So am I the only one who didn’t know what he said?” Tauriel was right; she did need to learn Sindarin. If that had even been the language in question. 

“‘My purpose is complete’,” Legolas translated quietly. “‘Blessed is my master, true ruler of all Eldar.’”

Nairi made a face. “Creepy bastard. Which we already knew. Now, is someone going to help me get the fucking body out’v my damn house?”

As if broken from some spell of fearful contemplation, Legolas and Tauriel moved simultaneously, each taking one end of Dead Cowboy and hauling him out of the room. Thranduil, pretentious bastard that he was, made no move to help. “Above your station, is it?” Nairi threw at him sarcastically, moving to properly scrub up the blood now that there was nothing in her way.

He said nothing, and she scowled at him over her shoulder. “You really are just such an entitled knob, aren’t you?” 

“You’ve done this before,” he replied instead, an unquestioning observation.

“What, cleaned up dead people?” Nairi’s smile was menacing on purpose. “Yeah,” she shrugged nonchalantly. “So don’t fuck with me.” She threw Thranduil a saccharine smile and held up her bloody rag. “No one will ever find your body.”

“A risk I’m willing to take,” he drawled back dryly, and she clenched her teeth together. He certainly did know how to piss her off.

“I bet you are,” she muttered into the tile floor, diligently scrubbing a bloodstain out of the grout. Nairi shook her head, picturing Cowboy Psychopath’s dead form on her kitchen floor once more. “How did I not see this coming? Nobody buys me drinks.”

“Are you truly surprised?” 

Nairi turned over her shoulder, not even sure if he was coming after her drunkenness or overall stupidity.

“Didn’t you see that hat?” he said instead, a smirk playing on his lips. “Hardly the picture of sanity.” Thranduil swept from the room while she was still sputtering, his dramatic exit greatly aided by the sweep of long robes behind him. 

Nairi scowled after him. _Damn it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The elvish translations are all my own and I take personal responsibility for any errors there. I do not, however, speak any Irish or Russian and while I am trying to cross-check my sources and avoid straight Google translate, please, PLEASE tell me if you notice a glaring error somewhere!
> 
> Tumblr: midnightbrightlights if you want to say hi!


	7. Hate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Thranduil does not know when to stop and Nairi is a bit of a mess. 
> 
> Kind of a transitional chapter so it is a bit shorter, but I'll have a longer one coming soon!

Nairi complained frequently about wanting the elves out of her house, but she had to admit that in their own insane way, they were settling in nicely. Now if only she could bend Thranduil to her will and make him leave her power alone. She shook her head, dark hair falling into her face, and continued filling her mug with coffee. Oh, who was she kidding? Sleep was a myth now, what with Thranduil’s brutal approach to her so-called weapons training, and eventually she would lose this stalemate too. 

A soft noise behind her signaled that she was no longer alone in the kitchen, so Nairi silently filled a second mug, arbitrarily splashed in cream, and turned around to slam it wordlessly on the kitchen table in front of Thranduil.

She drained her cup in a few swift, burning gulps and refilled it, then moved to stand at the window, ignoring the king in her kitchen in favor of watching a mesmerizing sparring match between his guards on her lawn. He was quiet while he sipped at the drink she knew he hated, and then she heard him set the mug down.

“Do you have any motivation at all to protect the girl? Sorscha?”

Nairi stared out at the street wordlessly, anger tightening in her belly.

“She is an innocent child, and you care for her. Refusing lessons like an obstinate child yourself will not help her.”

Nairi swallowed another mouthful of coffee, waiting for the caffeine to kick in.

“You will do as I say,” he warned her.

Finally, she spoke. “You're not  _ my  _ king.” The words were quiet, and bitter.

“You--”

“Where I come from, a woman has the right to say no.” She cut him off coldly, turned to face him for the first time, and glared into his icy blue eyes. “I told you no.”

He watched her for a moment, calculating, and then stood, inclining his head in the general direction of the outdoors. “Come with me.” A statement, delivered in the same, cold, manner, but somehow less of a haughty command.

Nairi’s face was closed off and still furious, but she twisted her lips and nodded. “Fine.” 

Clutching her coffee mug tight enough that she feared the handle might snap, she jammed her feet into her beat-up combat boots by the door and followed him sullenly outside. Thranduil took an unfamiliar path with sure feet, though she couldn’t tell if he’d been here before or just had inhuman grace. Maybe both. 

She wound her arms tightly against one another, clamped against her chest, and she plodded after him with her jaw set and a knot of panic tightening her chest. 

“Where are we even going?” she tried, huffing in frustration when, as expected, he ignored her.

The silence was beginning to drive her mad by the time they entered the woods, Nairi ignoring her internal superstitious protests. He was an elf, she supposed. She'd already entered the wood with one of the creatures from it, what more harm could she do?

Another mile of aimless wandering, and then he stopped them in a little clearing, turned to face her with his entire face stone cold. “You have no excuse now.” Thranduil said quietly. “It is not your town, there is nothing you can harm, nothing you can destroy. Do your worst to these trees, they have endured far worse.”

Nairi was still breathless from the walk, painfully aware of how out of shape she'd become. She glared at him, and said nothing.

“What are you capable of, Nairi?” He prompted musingly.

She stayed silent, apprehension heavy in the pit of her stomach.  _ Don't make me do this. _ Couldn’t he understand that that was exactly what she was afraid of finding out? She couldn't. She couldn't do this, couldn’t touch that power hidden inside her, couldn’t wield it. It was death and destruction and uncontrolled wildness.

Thranduil watched her, his face betraying nothing. “If you do not learn to control this now, the rest of your miserable mortal life will be spent waiting to see if you suffocate a blacksmith for an unfair price or reduce a stable to splinters should a horse step on your toes.”

Nairi wanted to shout. She was already afraid of that, too. “Damn you.” She muttered, barely audible, then scuffed the toe of her black combat boot in the dirt and added sullenly, “We don't have blacksmiths anymore anyway.”

He scoffed. “Do you take pleasure in being obstinate and infuriating?”

Nairi tossed her head back in exasperation. “Oh, that's rich, coming from you. You're a goddamn  _ robot  _ and all you ever do is push me like if you only squeeze a little harder I'll crack.”

“Show me you cannot, and I will end this.”

“I can't. I've told you I can't do this.” Nairi hissed, voice rising in near hysteria. “And I don't want to.”

“Have you even tried?” Thranduil challenged scathingly.

Nairi flung her hands out, desperation coloring her expression. “I can't. I don't know how.”

“Concentrate.” Thranduil walked forward, taking her wrist lightly and turning it so that her palm faced outward, fingertips up toward the sky. Her hand was utterly dwarfed by his, and she swallowed nervously. Against his skin hers looked almost blue, like something that reached out of a grave in the midst of a Halloween festival.

“Feel the air in front of you.”

Nairi scrunched up her face. “I can't.”

“Close your eyes,” he suggested softly. Her lashes fluttered shut, leaving her in darkness, broken by mottled sunlight filtering through her lids. There was no epiphany, and she couldn't feel any damn thing except the lazy warm breeze on her skin.

“Get angry.” He commanded next, still sounding remarkably bored.

Eyes still closed, Nairi flinched. Angry. What if she killed him too? God help her, what if she wrecked the whole damn woods?

“Nairi,” she heard him warn vaguely. Footsteps rustled closer to her, but she kept her eyes squeezed shut, hands now clenched into fists at her sides.

_ I hate you _ , she heard her fifteen year old self scream.  _ I hate you _ , and he couldn't breathe.  _ I hate you _ , and he was dead.  _ I hate you, I hate you, I hate _ me.

Hands gripped her shoulders and her eyes flew open at the unexpected contact. Thranduil was standing toe to toe with her, and she was trembling all over. His hands stayed firm on her arms, ice blue eyes boring into her. “Get a hold on yourself.”

Her eyes were wet, she realized suddenly, and her head felt light. What was he doing to her, damn it? Why couldn't he just leave her alone? She shook her head, and his face turned vaguely annoyed. “Control yourself.”

She was panicking, crying, terrified, and he didn't understand. He wanted her to be something she couldn't, and damn it, she wanted him away from her. Nairi’s hands came up and she shoved at his chest, knowing his Elven strength wouldn’t let her do much anyway. “Let me go.”

He stumbled backwards and bent double like she’d punched him in the gut, and Nairi’s fingertips felt hot. _ No, no, no, no. _ She backed away, tears blurring her vision again, hands outstretched, to ward off what she didn't know. Her breathing was too shallow and too quick, and she squeezed her hands into fists. She watched the great Elvenking fly backwards at the gesture, and fell to her knees in the dirt.

Nairi couldn't breathe. Her fingernails dug into her palms relentlessly, heedless of the crescent-shaped cuts beginning to bleed, trying in vain to ground herself. She was huddled on the ground in the little clearing, shaking like a leaf and sobbing, gasping for air that couldn't seem to make its way down her closed-up throat. Her head spun, her entire body was awash in some false, tingling heat, and she couldn't make it stop. Couldn't control herself, or make herself stop shaking. Covered in sweat, Nairi tried to swallow. Her throat felt frozen, and panic overtook her entirely as her body seemed to shut down around her.

She was a loose cannon and a wreck and a monster and she'd killed him. He was dead because of her, and her mouth fell open in a silent scream. Her voice had failed her too, leaving her to make small squeaks in between uncontrollable sobs that rocked her body forward. She wanted so badly to run, if only she could trust herself to stand. She was spinning out of control, and Nairi didn't have the energy to fight it anymore.

She was lost to her own darkness for what felt like hours, but in reality must have been only a few minutes. She vaguely registered gentle hands on her shoulders, lifting her and rearranging her limp form into something more comfortable on the forest floor. She instinctively yanked her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, huddled into as close to a turtle form as she could get without a shell.

“Breathe.”

It was just one word, and she didn’t even register who was saying it at first, but it split the darkness like a knife. For the first time in fifteen years, she wasn’t alone.

“Focus on your breathing, Nairi.”

She opened her eyes slowly, still shuddering and gasping, and blinked the tears out of her vision. She was curled up in the middle of the clearing, sitting unceremoniously on the floor near where she had fallen, and Thranduil was kneeling in front of her, hands on her shoulders, a clump of blond hair near his forehead dyed dark red.  _ Fuck _ . Her throat seized up again at the thought that she’d fucking flung him across a forest, and she sunk her teeth into her bottom lip hard.

“You’re alright, Nairi, just breathe.”

She hugged herself tighter and took a deep, quivering breath, the pressure falling off her chest.

“What do you need?” he prompted softly, and her eyebrows quirked in confusion.

No one had ever asked her that before. “Just take me home,” she finally managed, and received in reply a brusque nod. He got to his feet, then bent and offered her his hand. It took a minute for her to unclench her fingers from around each other, but finally she reached up and hauled herself to her feet with his help, stumbling sideways as a wave of dizziness rocked her, accompanied by the achy exhaustion that always came with an attack.

Thranduil didn’t hesitate, and before Nairi could register what was happening, he had swooped her up into his arms, dirt, leaves, and all, and was carrying her out of the trees. She vaguely supposed that she should at least sit up and hold onto him, but she was tired and disoriented enough that she was content to simply lay limp, one arm hanging and her head falling back over his elbow.

When they at long last made it into the house, Legolas’s blue eyes were wide in alarm, and Nairi figured they must look quite the sight. She was streaked in dirt, with leaves and twigs still stuck to her clothes and in her hair, eyes red and swollen, tear tracks cutting across her cheeks. Limp as she was in Thranduil’s arms, she must have looked dead, and the king was no better, really. He, too, was filthy, probably from when she’d thrown him, with his ridiculously perfect hair tangled and matted with the blood that was running down into his eyebrow.

“Valar above, Ada, what happened?” The younger elf cried out, leaping up from her couch to take Nairi from his father’s arms. She stumbled a little when Thranduil set her on her feet, but she pushed Legolas away anyway. She could stand.

“Just an accident.” Thranduil said breezily, and Nairi whipped her head around in shock to look at him. “It was my fault.”

“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed at him, between clenched teeth. “And for the love’v God, get over here.”

Legolas watched in concerned confusion as she unceremoniously grabbed his father’s sleeve and yanked him in the direction of her bathroom. Nairi was filthy, pale, and she still looked shaky, but her mouth was set in a determined line.

She shoved Thranduil hard against the sink, muttering to herself, and bent to retrieve a first aid kit from under it. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” She demanded suddenly, slamming the plastic box onto the sink next to his hip.

He watched her, bemused and bloody, but offered no response, and she made an exasperated hissing noise as she dampened a face cloth and reached up.

“Come down here, damn it, you’re too bloody tall!”

She thought his lips twitched in amusement, and he obligingly bent forward so she could wipe the blood from his forehead. She wasn’t gentle, a product of her personality compounded with her anger, but the Elvenking didn’t flinch. She couldn’t quite decided whether to hate him more for that, or respect him.

Nairi finished cleaning the cut and wiping blood from his hair, her lips pressed into a thin line. Thranduil thus far had only spoken once, her name, and she’d stopped him with a solid whack to the chest and a growled, “Shut up!”

She waited until she’d packed the first aid supplies back up and put the kit away, and then Nairi gave in and let him have it. “Do you have any idea how fucked up this whole thing was?” She threw her hands up, pointed angrily to Legolas, who was cautiously leaning on the doorframe. “I fucking flung you into a motherfucking tree, damn you, and you have the nerve to tell him it was your “accident”?” she sneered. “It was my mistake, mine! I fucked up and don’t you dare try to fucking cover up for me!”

Nairi leaned forward, curled her hand into a fist and hit his chest again. “And when I tell you I don’t want to do it, that fucking means I don’t want to do it, you ass! I could have killed you, damn it. That’s your blood on my hands for the rest of my short miserable life, all because you had to push. Well guess what?” She let loose a slightly hysterical laugh. “You push something hard enough, it’s going to snap!”

She was starting to spin out of control again, throwing her anger and all the blame around even when she knew it was herself she should have been angry at, lashing out because it was what she did best. She was so broken. So very wrong.

“Nairi!” Thranduil barked out, his hands coming to grip her arms. “Stop. You did nothing irreparable, and the fault was mine.”

“Yeah, maybe you did fuck up, but if I wasn’t such an obstinate bitch--” It was always easier to sink into self pity than to open up and let anyone see her.

Thranduil, still holding onto her arms, blinked at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes, a look she'd never seen before. “And this is how much you hate yourself,” he whispered, and the look on his face was almost human, for once.

Nairi reared back, failing to pull out of his grip, and glared. Too close to the truth, too close to her. “I don't.”  _ Liar _ .

“You do. You cannot forgive yourself, and you hate yourself for living when your father is dead.” Thranduil’s voice was still gentle, but growing in conviction. Nairi was shaking her head, desperately, but they both knew he was right.

“Listen to me, Nairi. I cannot make you forgive yourself, I cannot make you love yourself. That must come from you. But you will never be able to control your gift until you do.”

“Bullshit.” Nairi scoffed. It wasn’t a gift.

He shook his head. “You have to forgive yourself first.”

“You're gonna be waiting a long time,” she ground out, pulling back against his hold again.

Thranduil sighed, and released one shoulder to tilt up her chin instead. “You are not alone, and you are not at fault. And I am sorry,” he whispered, and this time he let her go.

Nairi stepped backward, shaking her head with a broken look on her face, and then turned around and walked away. A set of footsteps started after her, then stopped, and Thranduil’s soft voice reproached, “Legolas.”

Nairi threw up one hand and flipped them off over her shoulder.

* * *

She ended up sitting at Ean's bar, tracing her finger around the rim of her shot glass, staring blankly at it.

"What're you doing here, kid?" Ean asked her quietly, passing in front of her with a bottle of whiskey in hand.

"How's Sorscha?" Nairi asked in lieu of replying.

Ean smiled fondly. "Back to runnin' all over, bless her little heart."

Nairi nodded. "Good."

"What're you doin' in here, Nairi?" Ean sobered, crossing his thick arms and staring her down.

She shrugged, and threw her head back, swallowing the contents of her glass and slamming it back on the bar.

"Nairi," he said, gently reproving.

She sighed, playing with the glass rim absently again. "They don't wait, the elves. They just throw everythin' at you, don't give a damn if you're ready."

Ean rolled his eyes, looking exasperated. "You're never going to be 'ready', Nairi, if you haven't figured that out in all these years you never will. You need someone to push you."

"Thranduil--grumpy ass elf king--says I need to _ forgive myself _ ." Nairi said mockingly, her eyes rolling.

Ean nodded wisely. "He's right."

Nairi made a sound of disgust and looked down at the surface of the bar, tracing her hand along a seam in the wood.

"Do you have any family at all, Nairi? Anywhere?" Ean prompted suddenly, and she snapped her head up.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "I want t' know."

Nairi blew out her breath and hummed. "I assume my mother is...somewhere. According to the elves, my brother is probably dead…" she shrugged. "You know my mother made them raise me in Russia. I had two angry Russian aunts and a traditional Russian grandmother, and all of them died in the same car accident when I was nine."

Ean pursed his lips. "What about your father's family?"

Nairi bit her lip. "Isobel. His mother, he used to call her on the phone sometimes." She forced the bitter memory from her lips. "She lives in Ireland somewhere, I never met her."

"Go see your grandmother, Nairi." Ean said gently.

"What? Why?" She reared back in surprise. "I don't-"

"She is your father's mother. Let her forgive you. And get out of this town for once."

Ean rarely gave her such insistent advice, but when he did she loathed him. "I think I'm done here." She slid the shot glass toward him, hopped off the bar stool with a clack of high heels, and strode out of the bar.

_ "Gramma Isobel, Nairi," her father pointed to a picture. He was younger in it, with an arm wrapped around the shoulders of a tiny, wrinkled woman with a long white braid. She looked, to the elementary aged Nairi, like someone had forged her out of iron, heated her up and shaped her and then cooled her in the buckets of water in an old fashioned blacksmith's shop. Isolated and alone as she was, the Irish girl living in Russia, Nairi quite liked that fantasy. The other girls never talked to her, leaving her with plenty of time to disappear in her own head and make up wild stories about her mystical grandmother, among others. And if nothing else, she had this woman who loved her, somewhere across the continent. _

With nowhere else to go, a Nairi much older and more jaded than in her memories slunk back home and installed herself on the couch, resolutely ignoring the presence of the elves around her. She hadn't forgiven them. Well, Thranduil. If she was fair, Legolas was just caught in the crossfire, but she figured she may as well be mad at him too. So there she sat, and, in spite of herself, thought of Isobel.

Each year on her birthday, a card would arrive in the mail, postmarked from Ireland. Sometimes Varya snatched it first, spewing hateful Russian curses, and destroyed it before Nairi could get her hands on it. But sometimes, Donovan secreted the letter away from his wife and gave it to Nairi. They were always the same--a cheery birthday card, an apology that she couldn't give a more personalized gift, some money, and a messy scrawl proclaiming "love from Isobel".

_ Love from Isobel _ . Nairi shook her head and laughed soundlessly.  _ Yes, and I killed your son. _

When she pulled herself from her reverie, shadows had grown long in the room, and the elves were nowhere to be found. Nairi kicked off her shoes, the thumps of them oddly loud in the darkness, and unfolded herself, standing. On silent feet she padded into the kitchen and lifted out the eggs she'd bought, and the bag of cheese. As quietly as she could, she set up a frying pan on the stove and threw a number of eggs into it--she didn't count. Nairi dumped in a few handfuls of cheddar cheese and let the mess cook, making herself a cup of strong black coffee in the meantime. The clock on the stove showed midnight, and here she was making coffee and...food. She wasn't sure if eggs and cheese really qualified as breakfast, lunch,  _ or  _ dinner.

Nairi dumped the pan's contents upside down onto a plate and stabbed a fork upright into the food, then lifted both her plate and the mug, and carried them across the house, watching the fork wiggle precariously with each step.

Seating herself at the laptop Ean had strong-armed her into getting, Nairi shoved a burning forkful of eggs into her mouth, and, eyes streaming in pain, logged onto the laptop. Wincing, she wriggled her dead-feeling tongue around in her mouth and bit her lip, fingers hovering over the keys.

She swallowed, and resolutely typed  _ Isobel Campbell _ into the search box. She edited her search a minute later to _ Isobel Campbell Dublin _ and scrolled through the hits, her heart racing and her stomach feeling nervously tingly.

An hour later, Nairi was wondering if she'd made a mistake in doing this. She didn't remember if Isobel actually lived in Dublin, just somewhere in Ireland. And really, what were the odds of the ancient looking woman even being on the internet somewhere? What if she was dead?

Google helpfully asked if she meant  _ Dr. Isobel Campbell _ and she reacted, clicking before even processing what she was reading. But no...she rearranged herself on the chair and leaned forward. Google was right for once. Her steel-and-iron grandmother was staring back at her from the screen, surrounded by links to the academic articles she'd written.  _ Examining the Social Effects of Mythology, Folklore, and the Concept of Magic. _ Good lord.

The picture had to be an old one, or else Isobel hadn’t aged in fifteen years. And these articles… Maybe it was all just a coincidence that her grandmother had devoted her life to studying myths and magic, but there were elves in her living room, and Nairi didn’t much believe in coincidence anymore. 

“Fuck,” Nairi muttered aloud, shoveling more eggs into her mouth. Maybe they were going to have to go see this woman after all. 


	8. Real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter is a lot. It's ridiculously long (because there was just no good place to divide it) and it covers so many things and I'm still not super thrilled with the end result. But, here you go. Apologies in advance?
> 
> In which Nairi learns that not everything is as it appears, Thranduil has abs, and the elves take a road trip.

Nairi woke to shrieking and the sound of a man's deep voice, lighthearted and foreign.

Her hair was in her plate of now-cold eggs, the computer screensaver flashing. She'd fallen asleep, and now, from the sounds of it, something truly horrifying was taking place in her living room.

Nairi pulled her hair free of the congealed mess and stood groggily, shuffling to the doorway of the living room to peer in. Her heart skipped a beat, though with what emotion she couldn’t say.

Thranduil was dressed in the most casual clothes she'd ever seen on him, simple pants and something that resembled a pale grey silken dress shirt, and his strong arms were extended above his head, holding fast to an obviously delighted Sorscha. Nairi's first instinct was to rush in and take the girl away from him, but she resisted. It was kind of sweet.

Instead, she yanked clothes at random from her bedroom closet and stumbled sleepily into the bathroom, immediately jumping backward in shock. "Jesus Christ! What are you doing?"

Tauriel turned calmly from the mirror. "I went out. You were asleep."

The elven woman was dressed in a pair of Nairi's cutoff shorts, and she looked frankly ridiculous, not to mention exceedingly uncomfortable. A pile of her green clothes sat neatly folded on the counter.

"Right. I’m not even going to--when did Sorscha get here?"

Tauriel just shrugged in reply, and shamelessly pulled her borrowed shirt over her head. "I do not know, but she is quite enthralled by the king."

"I noticed," Nairi said dryly, glaring down at her clumped-together hair. "If he breaks her I will castrate him."

She reached into the shower and turned on the water, beginning to undress as Tauriel headed for the door. "And tell him he's going to have to wait to kick my ass until after I shower."

Nairi hid under the stream of water until it turned cold, and then resolutely climbed out and got dressed, this time in a pair of baggy sweats and an extremely oversized flannel over a tank top. She shuffled barefoot across the house with her dripping hair held aloft in her right hand, skirting the worrying shrieks and laughter from the living room, and rummaged clumsily through the kitchen drawer with her left.

When she'd jammed the wet tangles atop her head with a pair of chopsticks, she yanked the sleeves up on her flannel until her hands peeked out and walked back toward the living room, snagging a slice of bread out of its bag along the way.

Nairi leaned on the doorway into her living room, gnawing on the bread slice thoughtfully and trying to process the scene in front of her. Sorscha’s presence didn't really surprise her; the child ran positively wild and had no sensible fear to speak of. It wouldn't faze her whatsoever to play with a random stranger, and, after all, she had found him in her 'Auntie Nairi's’ house. Thranduil, on the other hand, may have been replaced by a pod while she was asleep. The stoic, asshole king that drove her mad was gone, and she could see actual emotions on his face. He was seated in the middle of her floor, back braced against the coffee table, with Sorscha perched in his lap. Compared to the sheer size of the broad-shouldered, towering Elf, she looked like a little doll, albeit a very happy one. She was chattering excitedly at him about god only knew what, and, to his credit, Thranduil appeared to be quite interested.

"Well I'll be damned," Nairi snorted almost cheerfully, watching their heads snap up to look at her in unison. "You've got emotions after all."

The look he gave her was lacking them completely. "Tauriel will be sparring with you this morning," he said brusquely. "Then I will be attempting to save you from your abominable technique with a sword."

"I spoke too soon," Nairi said dryly, glaring at him. "Did I miss the bit where I signed up for the goddamn army?"

Thranduil ignored her entirely, and turned back to the child in his lap. Nairi shook her head. His devotion to Sorscha was kind of cute, if entirely confusing, but he still had about as many people skills as a lobster. She said as much to Tauriel as they walked outside, her toes complaining at the cold dew, and was rewarded with a startling, ringing laughter from the elf woman.

"I saw a lobster once, a few decades ago. Your comparison is not entirely inaccurate." Tauriel handed her one of the daggers again, and gestured for Nairi to face her, looking critically at her flannel. "You'll need to take that shirt off."

Rolling her eyes, Nairi cast it onto the grass, and shivered slightly. "Right, now what?"

"I want to drill some movements today," Tauriel said quietly. "You have power, but you cannot control your attacks."

"Surprise, surprise," Nairi said sarcastically. "What?"

Tauriel instructed her to hold up her own dagger, and then demonstrated a twisting sort of attack that flowed smoothly and brought their blades ringing together. "Start with this, practice against me until it becomes natural and you learn to put some strength behind it. And after each one, set the dagger down, ten push-ups, pick it back up."

Nairi huffed, and shifted her knife in her hand. "Why?"

Tauriel looked impatient. "Your weapons must become an extension of you. Even exhausted, picking yourself up off the ground you must learn to regain your weapon and hold it properly in an instant. There is no time to fumble with the grip in a fight."

Nairi made an irritated hissing noise at the thought, but squared her stance to comply nonetheless. Her first attacks were clumsy, her push-ups weak and wobbly. Tauriel watched critically, no sympathy in her voice when she relentlessly corrected her form. In spite of this, though, the elven woman looked almost bored, attempting, apparently, to strike up a casual conversation. "I saw much more of your world this morning. Is all of it so odd?"

Nairi grunted, fighting shaking arms with her face brushing the tips of grass blades. "Little busy here. Where did you go, anyway?"

"I was curious. It does not surprise me as much that you could be as you are, living in this world." Tauriel continued, undeterred as she easily blocked another blow.

"The hell is that supposed to mean?" Nairi's hand slipped on the knife and she cursed.

Tauriel was silent for a moment, and Nairi glared violently at her. She seemed to be considering her words. "Your fëa is tired of this world, I think."

Nairi scoffed, railing against the conversation. "I am here so you can show me how to slice into people, this is not some fucking support group for sharing your feelings." she sneered.

"I am sorry that you have such a low opinion of asking for help," Tauriel replied coolly. "There is no shame in it."

Fueled by anger, and by emotions further down that she had no interest in examining, Nairi fumbled through the smooth, fluid movements Tauriel had shown and clashed their daggers with a grunt.

Tauriel raised a delicate eyebrow. "You can do better than that."

Nairi's lip curled. "I'm not one of your soldiers."

"Again." She simply replied.

Two hours later, Nairi was covered in sweat and her arms felt like rubber. They'd collapsed midway through her last set of pushups, leaving her face smeared with dirt. And still, Tauriel was relentless. Everything on her hurt, and her eyes stung with sweat, and she knew she still had to endure Thranduil's special version of hell after this. Compared to him, Tauriel was being gentle.

Her movements were tired and sloppy, and she backed up, shaking her head. "I'm done."

Tauriel shook her head. "Show me what it looks like when Nairi gives her full effort. Just one time."

"I did," Nairi said breathlessly, wiping at her forehead, and she shook her head.

"No. Stop holding back."

She hit Tauriel's dagger a little harder this time.

"Good. Again."

Nairi hissed, frustration welling up. She crashed their daggers together with a jolt that bounded back up her arm, and bent forward to glare into Tauriel's green eyes. "That good enough?" she asked, and her voice was deadly low.

All at once, Tauriel moved faster than she could track, and Nairi was suddenly on her back, the dagger knocked out of her hand, and Tauriel was pinning her down, both of the knives now in her possession, and crossed at her throat. "Now what?"

Nairi flinched.  _ I don't know. _

Tauriel pressed her harder into the dirt. "Don't drop your guard. Ever. What are you going to do now?"

Nairi swallowed hard, breathing raggedly, and shoved at Tauriel. It did nothing, of course; the elven woman was easily twice her strength. But she remembered the feeling of hands on her in a dark alley, the gritty street under her back and the stranger's drunken breath, and let muscle memory and scrappy street fighting instinct take over. With a strength she didn't know she would still possess after such a workout, Nairi flipped them both over, recklessly heedless of the proximity of the daggers to her throat, and used her weight to drive Tauriel into the dirt. "Am I done, now?"

Tauriel relaxed, nodding, and Nairi climbed clumsily away to let her up.

"You did well."

To that, Nairi had no reply, and they walked back into the house in silence, Nairi making a beeline for the coffee machine. "Everything hurts, so thanks for that," she called over her shoulder sarcastically.

"My pleasure," Tauriel tossed back, earning them a faint sound of amusement from Legolas, who was staring in transfixed confusion at her computer screen. Shit.

Coffee mug in hand, Nairi ran ungracefully toward him, ignoring the splash of liquid across her floor in the process.

"She looks like you," Legolas mused. "Who is she?"

Nairi cursed quietly and reached in front of him, shutting off the screen. "My grandmother, I think, but that's not even a little bit relevant."

His blue eyes looked surprised. "You have family?"

"No." Nairi said coldly. "Not anymore."

"Ireland is one of the old gateways. She may be of Elven blood." Legolas pointed out thoughtfully.

"I don't care if she's the Queen of England." Nairi bit out.

"We will eventually need to use that gate," Tauriel spoke up, startling Nairi with her presence. "We could visit her."

"When hell freezes over," Nairi replied. "End of discussion. Isn't Thranduil supposed to be around here somewhere so I can get the fancy sword ass-kicking out of the way?"

"Eloquent as always."

She jumped at the quiet, lazy drawl and turned around, curses flying from her lips. "Son'v a bitch, how long'v you been standin' there?"

His lips twitched. "I would like to meet your grandmother, Nairi. Come, we will practice in the forest today." 

"One of these days I will whip your stupid royal ass," Nairi muttered, draining the last of her coffee and discarding the cup carelessly beside her computer. One of her boots was lying beside the chair, and she shoved her foot in, proceeding to hop-walk across the floor to where she could see the other, haphazardly thrown under the coffee table. She could feel Thranduil's eyes on her, watching in what she was sure was scathing disapproval.

"I look forward to it," he said smoothly, and closed the back door on her responding indignant yelp.

Thranduil stayed a few meters ahead of her all the way into the trees, Nairi hurling periodic, sassy complaints at his back the entire time. He carried both of the swords, and never once uttered a word.

When he finally halted, she felt her stomach clench up at the familiar clearing. "Why are we back here again?" She looked around wildly. "I don't want to—"

"You need to learn that you cannot run from everything that you fear." He held her gaze unflinchingly. “Now pick up the sword, and breathe."

It wasn't until he spoke that she realized she hadn't been. Nairi sucked in a breath, feeling her head spin slightly in protest of the oxygen deprivation, and bent slowly to lift one of the swords from the grass.

The muscles in her back and arms ached, but she grit her teeth. She wouldn't be weak, not in front of him. Not here.

Clumsily, she spun the weapon in her hand, nearly slicing off her foot in the process. Thranduil arched an eyebrow, and she bit her teeth into her lip as an inexplicable smile threatened in reply.

"Begin," he said softly, and swung his sword.

What followed was a lethal dance, blades ringing in the clear air and Nairi's panting breaths loud in her ears as she fought to hold her own. Her hands were slipping on the grip, slick from the same sweat stinging her eyes, and she bit her lip.  _ Get creative _ , Tauriel had said to her once. _ Improvise. _

Nairi took a handful of running steps backward, dancing clumsily out of reach of his sword for a heartbeat. She saw his eyes flicker with something, and he strode after her. The afternoon sunlight was behind him, the sword glinting at his side and his expression razor sharp. He looked, she thought, like a deadly avenging angel. Beautiful and ethereal and enchanting, and he could end her life so damn fast. And somehow, she was supposed to trust him not to.

Nairi didn't trust anybody. Her past, her upbringing, and all of the gangs and outlaws she'd brushed shoulders with had taught her better than that. And she didn't trust him, not really, but she'd had sleep and food and sunshine and after everything she was still alive, and for once in her life Nairi didn’t feel so afraid.

She smirked at him, her usually dull eyes alight, and then she turned on her heel and ran, carrying the sword by her side and jumping with burning thighs over a fallen log and into the thicker trees, pressing her back to a trunk wider than she was and glancing around, feeling her heart race in her chest.

Nairi brought her free hand up to cover her mouth, muffling her breathing to his superhuman ears, and she could smell the dirt on her palm. She couldn't even recall putting her hand down at any point, but she must have. It was fresh, clean soil, and it hit her like a slap in the face. The world had always been out here, the bark digging into her back and the plants and the earth, waiting for her to stop languishing in a wine bottle.

"Hiding is bad form, Nairi," Thranduil interrupted her musings, suddenly at her side with the sword held to her throat and an irked expression on his face.

Nairi rolled her eyes. "I was improvising."

He stared at her with those pale blue eyes, something unreadable flickering in their depths, and she huffed and lifted her finger lazily to poke at the flat of the blade in front of her neck. "C'mon, let me up."

He relented and she pushed herself off of the tree. "Rematch. No rules."

"You truly believe you can hold your own?"

Nairi shrugged again. "I'm bored. Please?" In the back of her mind, she was screaming. Nairi didn't say please, Nairi didn't do this, any of this. But, goddamn it, she wanted to have fun. She was tired of questioning everything and tired of telling herself no. And if she wanted to have a sword fight with an immortal elf, then fuck it, she was going to. Oh, she knew it was a bad idea, but she didn't want to stop.

Thranduil considered her for a moment, a look in his eyes that almost scared her with its intensity, and then he nodded. She stepped away from the tree, raised her sword, and swung it with all of her strength. Her muscles ached, and he blocked it easily, but the steely clang was satisfying. She wasn’t totally helpless anymore.

They exchanged a few more blows, Thranduil ruthless and evidently holding nothing back, and she was losing. 

Seeing no better choices, Nairi ran. A little breathless laugh escaped her as she flew over the forest floor, jumping over exposed roots and feeling twigs and brush scrape at her as she pushed past. Her lungs burned, as did her calves, and she could feel her heart bursting in her chest. Her lips stretched into the unfamiliar feeling of a smile, and she pushed herself faster, feet pounding the ground. Behind her, she could hear Thranduil's growl of frustration, and at first he seemed to give chase, but then all the crashing noise was her own, and when she slowed to a stop, gasping, all she could hear was her own breathing. He was hunting her, and she was almost definitely in over her head.

He wouldn't kill her, he needed her too much. Nairi squatted down in a thick clump of bushes, gently enveloped by the cool leaves, and breathed as quietly as she could, listening, her eyes darting around intently. She had her hair gripped in one hand so as not to get it caught on any branches or twigs, and the sword lay beside her in the other. She closed her eyes, and let her hammering heart slow, and for an instant, she could see an image of a different, unfamiliar forest behind her eyelids. She blinked rapidly, the silence ringing in her ears.

Her legs were beginning to ache from the cramped position, and then she saw him, striding by in irritation, and ducked her head down, holding her breath. His footsteps were eerily silent, his every movement screaming that he wasn't human, and he blew straight by her without a glance.

Nairi had to muffle an incredulous laugh. How in the hell had she hidden from an immortal elf king? Unless, of course, he was toying with her, but she didn't think so. He didn't know where she was...which meant she had the advantage.

Thranduil looked thoroughly annoyed when she exploded out of the bush, covered in dirt and looking like an untamed bundle of chaos, and he whirled to face her fully, sword flashing. Nairi, for her part, had never more fully understood what a baby deer must feel like, all legs and floundering around with no control over its limbs. He knocked the weapon out of her hand in a heartbeat, sending it to the forest floor to lay in bright silver contrast to the earth beneath it. For a moment, they both looked down at her fallen weapon, and then Nairi looked back up to meet his gaze, and in utter recklessness, she lifted her fists.

A huff of breath that might have been a mocking laugh escaped him, and he swung at her again, and again, though this time, she noticed, with the flat of the blade angled to hit her. She'd be bruised, but not slashed to ribbons. By some miracle, though, she ducked, throwing herself out of the way of his blade and coming up clumsily to stand just in front of him. The thrill of the fight was in her veins, and before she'd even thought about what she was doing, Nairi saw her opening and swung her fist, not bothering to soften the blow as he had prepared to do for her.

It happened in an instant, but all at once she was aware of the magnitude of her mistake. The knuckles of her hand sunk  _ through  _ the skin of his face, the flesh she connected with feeling scarred-over and twisted, and as she yanked her hand back, the tips of her fingernails clacked on teeth.

"Ah, Jesus," she gasped out, stumbling backward even as he rather clumsily pushed her away. His eyes flashed in pain and anger, and she watched in horrified fascination as his cheek melted away to reveal a grotesque snowflake of burned muscle. "I-I'm sorry,"

"No, you are not." He replied, sounding more tired than anything. His face was closed off entirely, and she wondered for a moment how much of his apparent coldness was out of fear. If she truly mattered so little to him, or if he was awaiting inevitable judgement, trying to protect himself. Like she was.

"How do you…?"

"A glamour." At her evident confusion, he added coldly, "Magic."

"Can I do that?" Nairi asked before she could help herself.

"This would be what finally catches your interest." He rolled his eyes in annoyance, and her stomach dropped into her toes. She'd been so caught up in his face that she was only just registering his white, blind eye. God above… That was why he hadn't blocked her blow, or seen her hiding. She'd been on his blind side.

"What?" He snapped, and she flinched.

"Nothing." Nairi averted her gaze. "Aren't...um, elves supposed to be able to heal themselves or something?"

His gloved fists clenched. "Dragon fire burns hotter than anything else. And they are magical beasts, of a sort."

_ Dragon fire.  _ "How are you alive?" She managed, barely above a whisper, and it didn't occur to her until after she'd said it that she was only wedging her foot further into her mouth.

"Legolas." He said, barely audible, and brushed past her abruptly.

_ Damn it. _ "Hey!" Nairi picked up her forgotten sword and chased after him, adjusting her path automatically to come up on his good eye. "You know I don't actually give two fucks, right?"

"Don't lie, Nairi, it's not good behavior."

"We both know I wouldn't know what good behavior was if it came up and bit me in the ass," Nairi snorted. "An' I honest-to-God don't give a flying fuck about your face, though I am a little sorry I hit you." She pointed a finger at him. "But only a little. So quit your daft wounded pride nonsense and slow the fuck down, my legs are short, god damn it!"

Thranduil turned to look at her, the glamour back over his face, albeit with the occasional flicker, and his expression was bemused, an almost-smile playing on his lips. "You are very strange."

"Don't I know it," she grunted, shaking her head. She was strange, and a social disaster, and she had far too much emotional baggage and most of the time she was a hot mess, but in that moment, she could be okay with that.

They were silent for a long stretch, and then Thranduil cleared his throat and said brusquely, "You fought better than you have. You are, I suspect, more than a little Elven."

"Oh, wow, thanks," Nairi bit out sarcastically, stepping over a root. "I'm flattered."

"It seems you are not quite a lost cause after all."

She looked up to glare at him, and, God above, was he teasing her? A snorting, sarcastic laugh burst from Nairi's lips, and before she could think too hard about it, she reached up and punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Asshole."

"Silif-elen," he countered, not missing a beat, and she wrinkled up her nose.

"Are you going to tell me what that means?"

Thranduil paused as if in consideration. "No."

"Fine, then, you bloody dryshite," she shot back with a roll of her eyes.

Something flickered in his eyes as he looked at her, his gaze jumping all over her face, and her laughter died awkwardly on her lips. She couldn't name that emotion, that intensity, but she knew no one had ever looked at her like that before, and she shivered uncomfortably. "What?"

Thranduil seemed to shake himself, and it was gone just like that. They walked out of the trees in as comfortable a silence as the two of them could manage, leaving her only a little bit unsettled.

* * *

Nairi knew something was wrong as soon as she crossed the threshold, Thranduil just behind her. She laid the sword down by the door with minimal care for where it landed, eyebrows furrowing at Legolas. "What’s happened now?" She kicked her shoes off haphazardly, letting them thump onto the wood as she walked toward him.

The elf shook his head in agitation. "There are people talking in town, we don't know what's happening. They wouldn't speak to us."

"Well, what are they saying?" Nairi asked impatiently, crossing her dirt-smeared arms.

Tauriel walked out of the kitchen angrily, her face sharp and focused. "Deaths in Ireland. I think that's where--"

Nairi reached for the TV remote, facedown in the couch cushion, and powered on the television, flipping through channels until she landed on one covering national news.

**78 dead of unknown causes in Ireland** , the bold black header read. She swallowed, watching as a brunette newscaster rehashed what was known so far about the breaking story.

"And that number is expected to rise. Authorities are investigating gas leaks and even the potential for an act of terrorism, but we have no conclusive cause of death as of right now. For those of you just joining us, Ireland is on high alert with 78 of its citizens found dead in their homes in the past two days, leaving medical examiners baffled as to a cause of death."

Nairi glanced between the elves, watching identical faces of anger and frustration. Tauriel hissed out a curse in Sindarin, shaking her head. “There’s no more time,”

"Time for what?" Nairi threw up one hand, the other firmly on her hip. 

“We have to go back,” Tauriel wasn’t looking at her, addressing Thranduil instead, and he nodded shortly at her, saying nothing.

Legolas’s eyes moved between Nairi’s confused face and the reporter onscreen, and, taking pity on her, he said quietly, “One of the old gates between the worlds is in what you call Ireland. These deaths are the work of our enemy.”

Until now, Thranduil had been silent, staring at the television still talking in the background. "Nairi, do you have a map?" He said finally, quiet intensity in his voice.

She nodded and crossed to her computer, sitting on her ankles in the chair and opening an online map of Ireland. Nairi tensed slightly when his hands landed on the desk on either side of her, pinning her in while he leaned over her to stare at it. If it were anyone else, she would have hit them by now for making her feel trapped. Instead, she settled on an annoyed huff. It was only Thranduil. 

Some of his hair slipped onto her shoulders, silk-soft, and she resisted the urge to just move it out of her way. That would be a bit weird even for her, Nairi thought, and focused on turning her attention back to the map.

"Okay, what am I looking at?" She asked after a moment, lost and now very bored with the silence. Her ankles, too, were beginning to complain from the position she was in, but moving didn't seem to be an option.

Thranduil didn't answer her. She twisted slightly in the chair to look at him, noting the way his face didn't even seem to register her. She shifted her ankles again, rocking forward to take the weight off of them, and her face brushed into that curtain of hair. Nairi sighed and shifted as best she could while still caged by his arms, tamping down her frustration at being unable to move. Suddenly, wildly, she wondered what kind of shampoo elves used, and she was biting down a hysterical noise when he moved, startling her. 

Thranduil hit the screen with one finger. "There."

She zoomed in on where he'd indicated, her brow furrowing. "Wicklow Mountains? It's a national park. Only an hour out of Dublin, apparently. Why?"

Thranduil pushed off the desk and stood, leaving Nairi to hastily unwind her cramped ankles. "That is where the gate has to be. There is no other possible location in the country."

"You got all that off Google Maps?" Nairi raised a skeptical brow.

"It is the gateway to my realm," he replied with his own arched brow. "Trust me."

"Right," Nairi said sarcastically, shutting off the computer. "Deep, personal connection to your trees. Got it."

"We must go. Now." Thranduil spoke abruptly, snapping the two other elves into action with his words. Nairi, though, stayed still.

"What?"

The Elvenking was already in motion, tossing words back at her over his shoulder. "We are powerless so long as we stay here." He turned to look at her, and Nairi sucked in a breath. Hie eyes were molten silver-blue, his face cut from stone, and she was sharply reminded that he wasn't human.

"Your 'boot camp' is finished. Now we hunt."

She shivered at his word choice, but glared at him nonetheless. "You have no idea what you're asking." Nairi's hands went to her hair and she sighed, pulling it tight in agitation. "You're bloody elves, no passport, no visa-and you expect us to what, hop on a plane?"

"You can take us, can you not?"

Nairi huffed exasperatedly. "Doesn't work quite like that." Blowing out her breath, she sat back down at the computer and shook the mouse until the screen lit. "I suppose-we could drive into England and take a ferry from there...but as for money and--and--Jesus, you don't do things by half, do you?"

Again, Nairi sighed. Three pairs of eyes were staring at her, expecting her to come up with answers, answers she didn't know she could produce. "Alright, I'm not putting any'v us through airport security--hell, some of those poor fools might arrest me on sight." At Legolas's quirked brow, she added quickly, "Getting on a plane with drugs is actually illegal."

"At any rate, assuming my old car from hell still runs, and assuming I remember which is the gas and which is the brake, I can drive us to Liverpool. From there, there's a ferry into Dublin, but you absolutely cannot look like bloody elves while you're on it, and it takes fucking forever. If we get a car in Dublin, that's an hour's drive down to the park. And that is all if we pray to every god anybody's ever believed in for luck, and we don't fuck anything up." She looked up at Thranduil, standing. "When do you want to leave?"

"As soon as you can orchestrate this." he replied brusquely, and she rolled her eyes.

"How did I know you were going to say that? Okay. Alright, good. Fine. We can...oh,  _ fuck _ ." She swore softly, finding no other words to express her rapidly increasing stress level. "Tauriel, get any and all clothing you know you can fit out of my closet and pack it. I should have a duffel bag somewhere in there. Uh, there are a handful of men's flannels, they'd probably--" She trailed off, critically eyeing the blond elves. "They could fit Legolas; he'll just have to accept looking like a slightly fucked up lumberjack. Thranduil--Jesus, are your shoulders even real?" Nairi rolled her eyes, as much at the phrasing she’d used as his unreasonable size. "What you were wearing with Sorscha--wear that. You'll all need to conceal your weapons--there's no way we're getting anywhere with those in public. Cover your ears. Do as I tell you and keep your mouths shut."

Nairi crossed the floor with a quickly stifled wince, feeling the burn in her thighs from her earlier exertion. "I need to--" she stopped speaking again. "Fuck."

Yes, Nairi had a car. Hypothetically, it would run. She hadn't driven it in years, though, and it would be a damn miracle if she could even find the keys.

The kitchen drawers yielded nothing, so she dragged over a slightly wobbly chair and climbed on it, rising on tiptoe to rifle through the chaos in the cabinet above the stove. She tossed a stack of papers down onto the counter, watching them slide sideways, and then reached for the glinting silver she could see in the back. Her fingers closed on the keyring, the chair rocked under her feet, and Nairi had a split second to squeal before she landed, flat on her back on the kitchen floor. "Son'v a bitch!"

She hauled herself to her feet with a stung pride that hurt worse than her bruises, but with the keys clutched in her triumphant fist. Maybe, just maybe, this insanity could actually be pulled off.

An hour later, Nairi was seriously considering punching in a couple windows on the shitty ‘77 Crown Victoria. She'd bought it used simply to have a means of escape in emergencies, but after an eternity under its hood, she was seriously questioning that decision. Nairi aimed a swift kick at one of the tires, spewing insults at the car and trying to wipe some of the grease off of her hands.

"By the Valar, Nairi, what-"

She looked up, staring back at Legolas in the door of the open garage, who looked, if possible, more hopelessly confused than she felt. "Son'v-a-whore car won't start," she muttered, aiming a second kick at the undercarriage. The bang was incredibly satisfying.

Legolas's lips quirked upward, reminiscent of his father but more easily forthcoming. "It is a...a mode of transportation, is it not?"

At her nod, he went on. "This...car...does not live, Nairi, therefore I fail to see how it could have had any naneth, let alone a whore."

Nairi took the two short steps to where he stood and smacked his chest, a laugh escaping her. The sound of her merriment was foreign to her ears, a ringing, clear sound that still caught her by surprise. "Oh, shut up." Nairi turned back to the car in question, squatting down beside the driver's door and tilting her head to peer underneath it.

"One thing you should know about us Scots-" she grunted, easing herself to the concrete and wriggling her head under the car. "We've got an insult for everything. An' I'm Irish too, so there's no hope at all for me to be any kind of civil."

Staring up at the underside of her rustbucket car, Nairi chewed thoughtfully on her lip. What was she supposed to be seeing here? There were all sorts of various metal parts, but she didn't for the life of her know what any of them did. Giving up, she squirmed back out and sat up, half heartedly brushing grit from her hair. What did it matter, she was already filthy.

Legolas was peering inquisitively into the open hood, and she waved at the engine. "Be my guest, I certainly don't know what the fuck's wrong with it."

She watched him cautiously unscrew a cap and lift out a thin metal stick, examining it curiously. Nairi started, curses flying from her lips as she turned in a useless circle around her garage. "For the love'v God, I forgot the oil! Bloody elf knows more about cars than me."

It took her another hour of curses and near misses with the heavy metal hood, but finally, Nairi climbed in the driver's seat and turned the key, hearing a horrible croak and then, at last, the purr of the engine. "Halle-fuckin'-lujah," she muttered, resting her head on the steering wheel in exhaustion.

After a moment, she pulled the car out onto the street and left it, unlocked with the boot open, to return to the house. "Alright, how many things'v you fools managed to set on fire?" She called, letting the door slam behind her.

"Fewer than you, I think," Legolas returned easily, a smirk on his lips. He was standing rather helplessly in her living room, examining an armful of crumpled flannels Tauriel must have dug out of her horror-show closet.

"Fuck you," she returned with a snort, walking up to examine the clothes in his arms. One by one, Nairi shook out and held up the shirts, eventually offering him a decently sized gray one. "Leave your pants and throw that on. You won't look...terrible. And remember to cover your ears. And—"

"Yes, Naneth," he sighed, and Nairi tilted her head.

"That's twice I've heard you say that. What's it mean?”

Legolas smirked. "Naneth is the Sindarin word for mother."

Nairi shoved him as she walked by, scanning the rooms for Tauriel. "You bastard. Where's your girlfriend?"

Legolas's laughter turned into a sputtering noise that brought a wicked grin to Nairi's lips, and she continued her search, sticking her head around every corner and yelling for the elf.

"I don't even live in a big house," Nairi muttered grumpily, pushing open the bathroom door. "Tauri—sweet Christ on a fucking tricycle!"

"Are you entirely undeterred by closed doors?" Thranduil raised an eyebrow lazily, turning to face her.

"No--I mean yes...fuck." She huffed in exasperation, trying madly to ignore the unsanctioned train of thought her brain was running off on. “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded after a too-long pause, settling on anger. Yes, anger was good. 

His eyes glinted, thoroughly amused by her predicament. "Getting dressed?"

"Oh, for Christ sakes, just put your goddamn shirt on!" She finally spat out, trying and failing miserably in an attempt to look unfazed. Normally Nairi wasn't the type to be ruffled in any sort of way by a little skin, but  _ holy mother of Mary how were his abs even real _ . She cleared her throat, frozen to the spot while he, mercifully, threw some loose silk shirt over his head. Nairi swallowed, her throat dry, as she watched muscles ripple in the split second before fabric covered them, though, to her simultaneous delight and dismay, not as entirely as one might hope.  _ Jesus fucking Christ. _

"I believe Tauriel is in your bedroom," he told her smoothly, breezing by with a little smirk on his lips. Nairi sputtered, cursing herself for letting him have the last word  _ again, _ and walked into her bedroom, noting a familiar redhead still kneeling in her closet.

"Would a little organization kill you, Nairi?" Tauriel lamented with the sigh. "What were you yelling about out there?"

Nairi let herself fall face-first onto the bed. "Absolutely nothing," she mumbled into the sheets, face still burning.

"Not very convincing," Tauriel mused. She stood gracefully and set a stack of neatly folded clothes on the end of the bed, next to Nairi's prostrate form.

Nairi mumbled something unintelligible, then raised her head with a half-dazed, half-haunted expression. "Nothing," she ground out. "Move on."

Tauriel gave her a disbelieving look, but mercifully let it go. She lifted something on the floor, revealing a crumpled duffel bag, and began to neatly slide in the stacked clothes. "There is room for weapons here also."

"Right, well, go throw it in the boot, I left it open. I'll just be a second."

Puzzlement crossed Tauriel's face, and Nairi elaborated, "The back of it...with the, uh, vertically raised door?"

When the elven woman had gone, Nairi stood and peered into her closet. After a moment of consideration, she quickly changed into her black corset top for the sake of wearing anything nicer than a three-year-old tank top, grabbed her gun to add to the duffel bag. Then, she surveyed herself in the mirror with a soft sigh.

She didn't look like herself. She didn't look like the woman she'd always known, but that wasn't what hurt. This woman staring back at her had a leather corset that fit snugly, and breasts to push up, thighs to fill out her jeans. She had hair that still ran wild around her shoulders and face, but it was softer, cleaner, no longer an uncared for rat's nest. This woman was bruised up and she had new scars, but she had new muscle to match them, and these bruises weren't from street fights and filthy, drunk men. This woman had color in her cheeks, little tan lines on her arms, enough that the blue tattoo sleeve no longer had such a haunted quality against white skin. And this woman had a light in her eyes, a foreign, bizarre glint that spoke of laughter and companionship, of energy and willpower and desire. It spoke of her new successes with blades, of jokes shared with Legolas and Tauriel, of life.

It wasn't the way she looked now that stung at Nairi, but rather the fact that she'd never looked like this before. Oh, yes, she'd been a lively child, but at just fifteen it had all ended, and now, for the first time, she truly saw herself in a woman's body, no longer a living ghost.

But was she ready to handle the rest of the world? Her entire journey had been within the borders of this little, off-the-map town, with the same thousand or so people. Until she'd arrived here, she'd been a lawbreaker, a wreck and an addict. It had been Ean who shouted at her to snap out of it and Ean who'd held her hair back while she vomited her way through detoxing. Sorscha had been her only source of light, and there'd been the same, every day stability keeping her from going off the rails.

Could she do it outside these walls? With elves as her companions, with terrifying magic in her fingertips? Nairi's hands absently slid over the metal of the gun she still held, her eyes unfocused in the mirror.

"Nairi! Are you coming?"

She swallowed, snapping out of it at the sound of Legolas's insistent call. "Yeah," she called in return, her voice shakier than she would have liked. "Yeah," she repeated, stronger. "I'll be right there."

Nairi passed through the bathroom for a hairbrush and toothbrush, and grabbed her beat-up faux leather purse from its semi-permanent home on the kitchen counter. Not bothering to lock the door in a place where everybody knew everyone anyway, she let it simply fall shut behind her. It felt a little like she was locking away her past, turning away from every time she'd gotten drunk in that house, every time she'd cried, every time she'd nearly raided the knife drawer or smashed the mirror for something to slit her wrists with. She squared her shoulders and crossed the lawn to where the elves were waiting.  _ Like it or not, Nairi, you're going on an adventure. _

None of them seemed to know quite what to do with the car, so she pointed at it with a roll of her eyes. "Get in, eejits."

Thranduil reached for the driver's side, and Nairi held out a hand quickly. "Oh-oh no, not that one. Unless you think you can handle driving this car from hell."

Tauriel cautiously climbed into the backseat, Legolas following. Nairi watched Thranduil gracefully slink around to the passenger's side and, satisfied, went briefly to the boot to throw her collected items in and slam it shut. In the backseat, Tauriel started at the noise.

Nairi went around to the driver's side and climbed in, turning around to address her passengers. "Okay. Seat belts, these things-" she waggled hers. "Put them on and fasten them. Helps you not die. You've sat in boats and carriages and things, right? It's just like that except a whole hell of a lot faster. Just relax."

Nairi fastened her own belt quickly and shoved the key in, sparing one more glance for her home in the rearview before turning devilishly to Thranduil. "Oh, and one more thing? Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."

With that, she threw the car into drive and hit a button on the stereo, wondering what CD she'd even left in the car from the last time she'd been in it. Within seconds, the sounds of classic rock filled the car and her lips turned up in a grin as she pulled away from the curb. The elves flinched, both at the motion and at the music, and Nairi just snorted and turned up AC/DC.

The drive down to Liverpool was a nearly eight hour one, and everything on Nairi hurt. Being cramped in the driver's seat made her back ache, her legs and feet hurt for some inexplicable reason, and the unconscious tenseness of driving for the first time in years had her shoulders and biceps screaming out in pain. The cross into England had gone smoothly, thank the heavens, and no one had even looked twice at Nairi or her pointy-eared passengers. Even so, the simple signs marking her cross into England felt more like she was trying to drive into North Korea with a car full of elves and medieval, but no less deadly, weapons.

They'd taken a break at a Shell station, refuelling the car and buying cheap convenience store food, and miraculously, no one had died and no one had come up to Nairi to ask why she had elves with her. She'd gone through three of her rock CDs and then thoroughly terrified Thranduil and Tauriel by digging out the Metallica black album from her glove compartment while tearing down the freeway at a solid 130 kilometers per hour.

"Valar, Nairi, the road!" Tauriel yelped out. Nairi raised her head lazily from where her line of vision was below the dash, jerking the wheel to avoid crossing onto the wrong side of the road. With one stretch of her fingers, she seized the album and sat back up, triumphant.

"If you kill my son and my captain in the name of that headache-inducing noise," Thranduil began, but she cut in over him.

"Actually if I crash, you're the one that's going through the windshield. They're probably safer." Nairi shrugged. "There's really no one to crash into either."

It was true, night had fallen while they'd been in the car and the roads were now mostly empty, save for the handful of other night drivers. As was her habit, Nairi was avoiding some of the major motorways, further decreasing the traffic. There was no other car in her sight line anywhere on the road, and Nairi found herself entirely unconcerned. Lonely night drives were her specialty. Not to mention, of course, that she was infinitely less likely to be stopped for her blatant speeding.

A glance in her rearview a little while later showed that Legolas and Tauriel had fallen asleep on one another, blonde and red hair mingling on shoulders while their elven eyes stared blankly. Nairi had learned a little while ago that this didn't mean they were dead—rather, elves had to be bloody creepy and sleep with their eyes open.

Thranduil was stone silent, staring ahead and occasionally at her, his face haughty and expressionless with his hands tensed slightly on his knees. Nairi, for her part, was doing her best not to make eye contact, at least not until she somehow managed to delete the image of him shirtless from her brain.

Nairi was on autopilot, cruise control engaged and Metallica playing low in the background. She blinked lazily, and somehow between blinks it was right in front of her.

She slammed on the brakes with a litany of curses, watching Thranduil fly forward in her peripheral and slam his hand on the dash. Still alone on the road, they skidded to a stop just meters in front of the deer, staring at them inquisitively and entirely unbothered.

"Fuck! Bloody motherfucking son of a—" she cut herself off, pushing hair out of her face and turning, foot still clamped on the brake. "All alive back there?"

Tauriel and Legolas both looked vaguely green, but nodded resolutely. Thranduil just glared at her, saying nothing. Nairi sighed, repositioning herself in her seat. "Right. Is the damn deer going to move sometime this century?"

She laid on the horn with abandon, shooting a furious glare at the animal through the windshield. It didn't move, but rather the buck turned to meet her gaze, and Nairi's breath caught.

Blue eyes blinked at her while she leaned, lightheaded, against one of the wide, old trees. Her head spun and her vision seemed to spark at the edges, but those eyes stared her down, staying in perfect focus, vivid against brown fur and the deep, dark green of the foliage around them. "Wake up, Nairi," she heard the elegant animal whisper.

"Nairi," Thranduil said sharply, and she started. The deer was gone, and she'd been spacing out, staring into the darkness with as blank a gaze as a sleeping elf's.

She shivered despite the warm car, but took her foot off the brake with a deep sigh and continued on down the road, saying nothing in spite of Thranduil's curious gaze. She didn't look, but she could feel his eyes burning into her. Blue, blue eyes.

"Do you find yourself frequently so distracted by deer?" he inquired coldly.

"Drop it," Nairi bit back, her tone leaving no room for argument.

"I'm sure we can make time to revisit this later," Thranduil went on smoothly anyway, and Nairi hissed.

"I said, drop it." Nairi could feel his blue gaze burning into her. She kept her eyes on the road.

They pulled into the city in the vague, dark hours around midnight, and Nairi negotiated a cheap room at some 24 hour, dingy motel. It was hours yet before they could get on the next ferry into Ireland, and she was too exhausted to even entertain the thought of trying to sleep cramped up in the car.

Nairi flipped the lock behind her on their single, two-bed room, and swallowed. It had been in a room just like this one where some filthy man twice her age had first offered her a syringe of heroin, where she'd fallen in with crowd after crowd of teenage drug users, and fallen right back out again after a few weeks. She rubbed her hand along her forearm absently, her fingertips resting on the little, shameful scars of her years as an addict. In the dim light, she couldn't see them, but Nairi knew exactly where each one was-faded, nearly invisible track marks from long ago, white lines from where her shaking hands had stabbed a needle in all wrong, the inch-long silver line when she'd glanced the needle off and instead the sharp tip scraped across skin. Later, high on god knows what, she'd picked at the wound, worsening it enough to scar, to become her permanent reminder.

She shook herself out of the daze, watching the elves move around the room. "I'll take the bathtub," she announced quickly, "and you three can sort out the bed situation."

Tauriel's brows furrowed. "You don't need to sleep in the bathtub, Nairi,"

"I'd rather," Nairi said flatly. What was the alternative, sharing with one of them? She wouldn't mind so terribly much if she trusted herself. But she didn't, so into the bathtub she would go, regardless of what they said to her.

She sat on the floor, back to one of the walls, while her unlikely companions took turns in the bathroom and settled in for the night. Nairi noted occasional vague looks of confusion or wonder, but, for the most part, she had to admit she was impressed. She'd taken them down a highway, through a filling station, and now into a modern, low-end motel, and they hadn't flinched. Well, except for the deer incident, but she couldn't really blame them there. She had, after all, nearly hit a large animal, and she was flinching too. If Nairi was honest, though, her reasons may have been a bit different than theirs. But like this dingy motel and the scars on her arm, it was better not to dwell on them.

She had set an alarm on the cheap bedside table clock while they were cleaning up, and as the elves moved to the beds, Nairi stood silently and slipped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her and leaning against it, her head falling back against the wood. She blew out her breath, turning to meet her own gaze in the mirror. "Jesus."

Quietly, she splashed some water across her face and then turned around in the small space. Upon closer inspection, the bathtub seemed like a decidedly unpleasant place to be, so Nairi let herself sink onto the thin floor rug instead. She pillowed her hands under her head, fighting a shiver on the chilly floor, and let her eyes close. At first, memories of other, miserable nights spent in motel bathrooms swam through her mind, and Nairi turned to her other side crossly, trying to drive them away with the physical gesture.  _ Enough _ , she snapped at herself.  _ Enough _ .

It was the alarm's harsh chirp that woke her, and Nairi reached out on autopilot to slam it off before her tired, fuzzy brain caught up. She was lying on soft sheets, her head up on a pillow, and the alarm clock was within her reach. As she lifted her hand off the clock, she opened her eyes with a wince, noting a dull ache in her left hand, mirrored less intensely all over her body. She rubbed her other one over her face, sitting up on one elbow in confusion. Had she gotten drunk last night? The usual hangover headache, though, was conspicuously absent, and she blinked, taking in her surroundings in bewilderment.  _ The hell? _

She was installed quite comfortably on one of the beds, and Thranduil was sitting on the end of hers, fully dressed and looking very awake while Legolas was spread-eagle on the other. Tauriel, presumably, was in the bathroom, judging from the sounds of running water.

"The fuck am I doing here?" she yawned out. "Bloody hell, which one'v you clotheads decided to pick me up and move me?"

"Do you not remember?" Thranduil queried softly. Nairi sat up more fully, alarmed now.

"Am I supposed to?"

"You had a nightmare. After you hit your hand, we thought it best to put you somewhere softer."

Nairi fell back against the mattress heavily, and lifted her hand out in front of her face. Fuck. The back of it was mottled black and blue, almost as if she'd thrown a very bad punch. "Did I...hit you?"

He shook his head, hair rippling with the motion. "The edge of the bathtub, I think. We investigated the noise, we did not see it."

Nairi's jaw tightened, and she threw the blankets off her legs roughly and stood. "I'm sorry," she said shortly, crossing her arms and moving to stare resolutely out the dirty window. There was no view to speak of, but it was infinitely better than facing down Thranduil. His old words ran circles in her head, taunting.  _ Unstable _ . He'd apparently carried her to the bed, and if she knew anything about herself, she would have been fighting him the whole way. He was lucky she hadn't lost control of her damned power and strangled him to death with it.

She tensed when Thranduil came to stand beside her at the window, joining her in staring at a dreary, empty carpark. He turned over his shoulder briefly, looking equal parts amused and chagrined at the sight of his son, still unwilling to move from the bed.

"I think you've spoiled him," he murmured, looking at her.

A nervous laugh escaped her lips. "What?"

"He has had no reason to wake up so early since we arrived at your home. He may have forgotten how."

"Not deaf, Ada," Legolas mumbled, not bothering to look at them. At that, Nairi smirked, but turned again to the window after a moment, the light conversation not enough to drag her from the guilt and stress of what she'd done in her sleep.

Thranduil's eyes flicked over her, calculating, and when she turned to meet his gaze, they looked to be a darker blue than she was used to. Fighting to break the tension, she asked self-deprecatingly, "So, how long did I keep you all awake?"

He gave a swift shake of his head, and Nairi got the sense that he was debating with himself, choosing words carefully. "You didn't," he finally told her softly, staring her down, and she couldn't quite tell if she'd imagined a heavier emphasis on you.

Nairi stood frozen, watching, as he casually rested his hand on the windowsill, long fingers flexing once. In the window's reflection, the back of his hand was just as scarred and ruined as she knew his face was under the glamour. "You are not alone, silif-elen," he whispered, and a shiver darted over her skin in spite of herself.

And for some inexplicable reason, Nairi was struck by an utterly bizarre desire for his embrace. She didn't want to trust anyone, let alone him, and she didn't want to get close to anyone. But somehow she got the sense that she'd feel safe with him, though he hadn’t really given her any reason to think so. She just wanted to remember what feeling safe was like.

"Nairi, what time does the ferry-" Tauriel cut herself off, staring at them from the bathroom doorway. "We'll talk later," she said briskly after a pregnant pause.

Nairi, though, had already taken a swift step backward from the Elvenking and was turning away. "Oh, hell, I forgot. We've got to go." She slapped her hand down on the mattress, a few feet from Legolas's head. "Up. Now."

"Nairi," Thranduil began, and rationally she knew he was probably about to ask something legitimate, something about travel arrangements or the human world or god only knew what.

Her chest felt tight, though, and she panicked, some part of her afraid he would make her confront whatever the fuck had just happened in front of the window, and she whirled on him, extending a warning finger in his direction. "Don't you even start," she snapped out, and lifted the duffel bag. "Let's go."

She didn't look back to see his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: midnightbrightlights (follow for updates on the writing shenanigans)
> 
> * I do not endorse the Nairi O'Callahan driving method. Please do not speed and die on the roads okay thanks.  
> ** I did a lot of google maps-ing and travel website-ing but I still live in the U.S. and have never been to Scotland and if I got anything glaringly wrong about the feasibility of their driving route please let me know.   
> *** Y'all are missing an Elvish translation right now. I know. It was intentional. (sorry...I know I'm just mean...)


	9. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Nairi is bad at family dinners and Thranduil is unimpressed.

Nairi cursed loudly as boiling steam blasted her in the face, and she stepped back, sputtering. As she let go of the hood, it slammed back down with a metallic bang that made her wince, the sound grating on her already frayed nerves. Standing on the roadside with her arms crossed, Tauriel looked thoroughly unimpressed. 

Earlier that morning, Nairi had packed up her CDs and quite literally abandoned her crap car in a parking lot--though the elves protested--before leading them to board the ferry to Dublin. Seven hours later, she’d scraped together enough money to rent one in Ireland, but, it seemed she had less than stellar luck with cars in general.

Propping the hood back up with hesitant movements, lest the metal thing slam down on her fingertips, she glared at Thranduil, leaning lazily on the driver’s door. “That didn’t help,” she announced, deadpan.

The Elvenking arched a haughty eyebrow. “You can hardly expect me to have comprehensive knowledge of these clumsy mortal contraptions. That, I believe, is meant to be your area.”

“I know shit all about cars and you know it,” she shot back, staring down into the engine with hands on her waist as though an answer would magically appear. _ Кровавый идиот. _

At her left, Legolas poked an inquisitive finger into the mass of unidentified parts and yanked it back quickly. “It’s very warm.”

“Oh my god,” Nairi drawled, feeling her patience exponentially decrease. “You’re a fucking genius! Even I know when a car is overheating, you idiot. Now, if you know how to make it stop,” she gestured toward the engine, “be my goddamn guest.”

He didn’t, of course, and she watched him sulk over to Tauriel instead. Maybe she’d been a bit harsh, but really, what did they expect after she’d been trapped in a car, a hotel room, a ferry, and now another car with these fools? She wasn’t the best at handling contact with other people at the best of times, let alone elves she was trying to keep from being arrested. Nairi halfheartedly tapped at a few more things with her fingernails, feeling heat sear at the tips, and then pulled back with a hopeless shrug.

“I’m fresh out of car epiphanies,” she announced, “and I will kill myself before hitchhiking with the three of you, so unless dear old Lord Thranduil has any further ideas beyond opening the goddamn hood--really fuckin’ brilliant, there, the next Einstein, truly--I believe we’re walking.”

In regards to Thranduil, at least, Nairi knew without a doubt that she was being too harsh, and there was no denying it. In her defense, though, he’d really sent her ‘round the bend with his stunt that morning and lashing out in response seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to keep him from ever getting remotely close to her again.

He was only being more infuriating than normal in response, and Nairi had spent the last ten or so miles imagining all of the different ways she could kill him. Now, she watched him gracefully push himself off of the car and, in far too few strides, was standing right over her shoulder. He leaned down, and she shivered at his soft breath over her neck. “No, I’m quite at a loss,” he practically purred.

Before she’d really thought through what she was doing, Nairi’d whirled around with her right hand up to slap him, her hair flying out around her in an angry, dark curtain. Her brain caught up with her hand still in midair, and she faltered, stumbling with the halted momentum as she hastily crossed her hand over and attempted to backhand the good side of his face, completely ineffectively. He caught her wrist just as she connected it weakly with his cheek, his grip like a band of iron as he forced her to lower it back to her side. She was breathless, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes in irritation, glaring at him while he put her back in her place like a child.

“I fucking hate you,” she offered lamely, immediately kicking herself.  _ Is that all you can come up with? _

“I’m sure,” Thranduil drawled back, eyes glittering. His gaze wasn’t on her, though, but something over her shoulder, and she turned hastily.

“Shit!”

The black sports car slowed to a crawl opposite them, and then Nairi watched in horror as it pulled to the shoulder and parked. Panic overtaking any earlier emotions, she reached up ungracefully on her tiptoes, shoving her hands roughly into Thranduil’s hair and yanking it forward. “Ears, ears, ears!” she hissed, firmly quelling the stupid voice inside her head that whispered about how unbelievably soft his hair actually was.

The purring engine idled, then shut off, and Nairi could hear the quiet click of a door opening. Heels clicked on pavement with a dry, gritty sound, and Nairi turned, her half-spun tale dying on her lips. “I--” her voice faltered and died, and she stared in undisguised shock, her lips parted.

“Car trouble?” Isobel Campbell asked.

She was a tiny woman, with low-heeled boots barely bringing her over five feet and a wild mane of white and silver hair tumbling in uncontrolled waves to her waist. Her face was weathered and her eyes were surrounded by wrinkles, but at the same time, she seemed ageless. Isobel had that same set to her mouth that Nairi had called iron-forged, and her eyes spoke of hard-earned wisdom and experience. She looked exactly as Nairi remembered her from childhood.

Now, Isobel looked shrewdly at Nairi, and then her eyes tracked to the elf behind her, and over to the pair on the roadside.“Hello, Nairi.”

“Isobel,” she replied flatly, crossing her arms tightly and taking a stuttering half step back. “How do you know who I am?” She’d only ever seen her as a baby.

Her grandmother waved one ringed hand toward her shiny sports car. “Get in, you’re not going to get anywhere with that old thing.”

Nairi wanted to protest, but she knew the woman was right. She could poke and prod uselessly at that car for days and it probably still wouldn’t start. Still, she had absolutely no interest in even speaking to her grandmother for longer than necessary, let alone going anywhere with her.

“Quite a coincidence,” Nairi said instead, “you just happening to drive by.”

“I knew that you would need me,” Isobel replied simply, and she went around to the back of Nairi’s car and lifted out the duffel bag. “Get in,” she said again, throwing the bag into her own vehicle. “I’ll take you to my home, and then you can ask me everything I know you want to.”

Still, Nairi hesitated. She’d never actually met this woman, only knew her pictures. Varya had called her all manner of hissed insults, and this was the woman who’d raised her father.  _ Your son is dead _ , she thought in disgust as she watched the old woman move briskly around to the driver’s side, _ and it’s my fault. _

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Isobel got into the car and closed the door, rolling down the tinted window a few seconds later to lean out and continue. “Are you coming or aren’t you?”

Before Nairi could open her mouth to reply, she felt Thranduil’s hand land on her shoulder, giving her a silent, gentle push forward before he moved around her toward the vehicle.

“Don’t touch me,” Nairi snapped out, but he ignored her entirely, helping himself to the passenger seat. She was inordinately pleased to watch him struggle slightly to fit his long legs and broad shoulders into the cramped space.

Legolas and Tauriel had moved in unison to follow their King while Isobel laughed loudly at something, and Nairi found herself crammed horrifyingly into the middle of the backseat, her shoulders wedged between those of the two elves.  _ I’m in hell _ , she thought grimly as her grandmother gave a satisfied nod and took off down the highway. She was trapped in a car she wasn’t in control of, enduring more human contact than she thought she’d had in years, and as if that wasn’t enough, the mother of the man she’d killed was driving.

She could hear the blood rushing in her ears and the scraps of conversation Legolas and Tauriel were having over her head sounded like they were coming from too far away. Nairi made a strangled noise in the back of her throat as she tried to breathe, immediately biting down on her lips. If she was going to have a panic attack, well, shit. But she swore to God she’d do it so silently, no one would ever know.

“Comfortable, Nairi?” Thranduil asked, never taking his eyes off the road in front of him. She could hear the amusement in his voice; he was laughing at her, damn him.

“You’re an asshole,” she spat out in return, still unable to come up with anything more creative.

“Whether I am or not is irrelevant.” He said smoothly, turning now to look at her over his shoulder. She met his eyes, glowing with triumph and something that she thought looked almost understanding. “You had to breathe to say it.”

_ Asshole. Fucking bastard son of a worthless cocksucking whore. Jesus bloody Christ, the nerve of him! _

“Do you notice every fucking thing?” Nairi demanded furiously, but she had to hand it to him, she was too angry now to feel like she was on the verge of spinning out of control.

He raised one dark eyebrow. “Where you’re concerned.”

“So help me God I will whip your ass when we get out of this car.” Beside her, she could feel Legolas shaking periodically with suppressed laughter, and Nairi thought perhaps he could do with being set straight too.

Isobel, meanwhile, was doing nothing at all to hide her amusement, and her laughter was uproarious--loud and brash and contagious. Gasping a little, she turned briefly to smirk at Nairi before returning her eyes to the road. “I like him.”

“Makes one of us,” Nairi muttered, though she thought that, in very select situations, that might not be quite true.

After that they sat in silence, Nairi stiff and uncomfortable while Isobel wove neatly in and out through the Dublin traffic. Legolas was watching out the window in undisguised wonder, while Tauriel merely sat still, quiet and ever watchful. She couldn’t see Thranduil’s face, or her grandmother’s, and perhaps that was a good thing.

The roads that grew quickly less populated, with trees springing up more and more frequently along the sides. After what felt like an eternity to Nairi, Isobel turned the car smoothly onto a gravel drive, and they wound along it into a forest, the rocks crunching under tires and hedges obscuring the view. Out of habit, Nairi found herself trying to memorize the path, and the turns they’d taken thus far. Years of a lifestyle not only illegal but dangerous in all manner of ways had taught her to always know the way out. And two back exits for good measure. She fought back a wave of irrational irritation at the stupid hedgerows, which all looked too similar and were probably blocking more reasonable landmarks.

Isobel navigated around a bend in the road and a house came into view, quaint and admittedly rather lovely. It was a big, rambling property and neatly kept, though the ivies crawling up the brick front and the chimney gave it a sense of having run wild. Bushes out front, though, were neatly trimmed, and stone paths ran through the yard like spiderweb, leading off into the trees in all directions. Isobel parked the car up on the gravel driveway and got out without a word, leaving Nairi to practically shove Legolas out when he opened the door so that she could crawl out and stand herself.

“Do I get my goddamn explanations now?” she bit out, staring at her grandmother with an icy expression.

Isobel slammed the trunk shut and nodded, Nairi’s duffel bag in her hand. “Of course, I gave you my word. Come inside.”

Reluctantly, Nairi followed, trying to fight the feeling that she might be sick. She contemplated turning around and just walking away--the car was right there, she could get in the driver’s seat and just leave, and she would never have to face down her past, her sins, or Isobel. But she knew the elves were behind her, and she knew they’d have something to say about it.

Fighting her flight instinct, Nairi stepped over the threshold and glanced around her grandmother’s home, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. The elves moved from behind her to follow Isobel, and she let herself be swept up with them, into the kitchen where the old woman was looking into the fridge. She leaned on the wall in the corner between the old carved dining table and the bay window, and she tried not to give them any reason to look at her.

Isobel straightened with a number of foods in her hands, and Nairi watched silently as she dropped her armful of meat and vegetables onto the countertop and dug out a pot from the cupboard beneath it.

“Here,” she said briskly, and she pushed a pile of long, gnarled carrots toward Legolas, along with a chopping board. “Cut these up.”

Nairi stared in disbelief as the tiny woman in her gray skirt and her black leather jacket calmly doled out kitchen duties to Tauriel--peeling potatoes--and even to Thranduil. She realized her mouth was actually hanging open when he complied, rolling his sleeves up to the elbow and accepting the board and long knife she gave him for dicing onions. Nairi closed her jaw with a snap, feeling irrationally irritated that he didn’t even tear up a little.

“So tell me,” Isobel said calmly, taking a little paring knife to the cellophane-wrapped beef and peeling it off. “Does she usually stand in corners like that?”

Nairi’s mouth opened in indignant protest, and she pushed herself off of the wall. “I’m right the fuck here, why don’t you direct your questions to me?”

Isobel raised her gray eyebrows. “Very well. Nairi, would you please come over here and set the table?”

“I don’t know,” Nairi snapped back, but she grudgingly took a stack of white china bowls from her grandmother’s outstretched hand and slammed them down on the table. “Are you going to explain anything or are you just going to make fucking dinner?”

Still infuriatingly mild-mannered, Isobel shrugged. “I happen to find that making the fucking dinner is generally important, don’t you agree?”

Growling under her breath, Nairi set the table. She slammed the bowls down and laid out napkins haphazardly and she toyed briefly with the idea of taking the forks and stabbing at least Thranduil and perhaps Isobel with them, but in the end, the dishes and cutlery were set out with some semblance of neatness, and Isobel gave her an approving nod.

She threw all of the ingredients she’d had the elves chopping into a copper pot and set it on the stove, mixing in some variety of spices and broths, and then she put a lid on it and turned around triumphantly. “We can speak while it’s cooking, if you wish.”

There was probably a living room around somewhere near if Nairi had bothered to look, but instead she just grabbed a chair from the table and spun it around, straddling it backward. “I do wish,” she bit out, and waited with her foot tapping impatiently while the three elves and her grandmother made their way over and sat down around the table. Isobel sat across from her, Tauriel between them at the table’s head. Legolas took a seat beside her grandmother, and, to her great frustration, she found herself seated next to Thranduil. Damn him. Nairi forcefully squished the voice that suggested she might be behaving a bit childishly.

But now that they were here, actually listening, she didn’t know how to start. She didn’t know what to ask, what answers she’d been demanding.

Isobel saved her. With metal cuff bracelets clinking on the wood, she leaned forward with her forearms on the table. “Tell me your story, Nairi.”

“What are you talking about?” Nairi spat back, harsh and defensive because this was exactly what she wanted to avoid.

“I haven’t seen you since you were a baby, Nairi. And now you’re thirty years old, in my kitchen with three wood-elves. There’s a story in the middle and I want to hear it.”

Nairi waved her hand carelessly, gesturing from Thranduil at her left around to Tauriel. “They just showed up one day. Real pushy, the lot’v them, told me they wanted my help and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“With what?” Isobel pressed, and Nairi thought she rather hated her.

“Some crazy eejit’s running wild around and they’re trying to stop him from taking over the world, or something like that.”

Isobel’s face betrayed nothing. “Interesting. He must be important.”

“Why?” Nairi asked immediately, in spite of herself.

Isobel’s weathered face broke into a knowing smile. “Well, if the Elvenking is personally attending to the matter…” she trailed off with an airy hand wave, letting the statement speak for itself.

“How do you know what he is? I never told you.”

Isobel burst into a fit of laughter. “Do you really think, Nairi, that he could be anything but a king, no matter what you’ve tried to dress him in? Which makes you,” she turned to Legolas, “a Prince.” She faced Tauriel, her eyes flicking over the woman. “And you’re military.”

Nairi didn’t know what to say to this, and apparently, the elves didn’t either. Isobel saved them the trouble of asking.

“I’ve spent my entire life studying all of this. If I didn’t know who was sitting at my table, I wouldn’t have deserved my doctorate.”

“Studying...what, exactly?” Nairi prompted warily, crossing her arms on the top of the chair back.

Isobel turned her palms up. “Magic. Folklore. The way society views magic, and folklore, and superstition. I wanted to know whose fault it was that the elves are all gone now. If my family really was… not entirely human.”

“What do you know?” Nairi challenged coldly.

Isobel gave a little shrug. “My mother called herself a witch. My grandmother did too. Apparently I come from a long line of women who believed in something...more than human. A touch of the supernatural, if you will. I grew up on bedtime stories about your world,” she gestured to Legolas beside her. “I grew up knowing there was an Elvenking and one Under the Mountain somewhere, kings of men and elves and dwarves, and worlds where nothing was the same and nothing was impossible. At least, so my mother said,” 

Isobel paused, making a face of frustration. “Magic for me was never the same as it was for her. I was born into her brand of witchcraft, I know what kinds of herbs and crystals are associated with what, and when to pray to which of her gods and when the moon is best for spells, but they never worked for me. I don’t know if they worked for my mother, really, but I grew up believing that they did. I just wasn’t like her--all I can claim is a very uncanny sense of intuition. Useful when company shows up unexpected and when my granddaughter can’t start her car, and not much else. I never gave it much thought until I met your grandfather.”

At that, Nairi raised her eyebrows. Obviously she had one, biologically speaking, but his existence had never really occurred to her. Her father, at any rate, had never mentioned the man.

“He was…” Isobel shook her head. “Charismatic and charming and handsome, and of course I was enchanted. And as we spent more time together, I thought I’d never met anybody who…” she paused, searching, it seemed, for the words to explain. “Who loved fire so much. He just… had an affinity for it. He liked fireplaces and birthday candles and he was a volunteer firefighter, and I thought, well, everyone’s a little quirky. I realized when he lit candles for my birthday after we were married that he didn’t have any matches in his hands.”

“He was like me,” Nairi whispered, unaware that she’d spoken aloud. It was bizarre, but relieving in a way. He was dead apparently, her grandfather, and in that sense she was still alone, but at the same time she wasn’t. And if he had been able to control it… there was a tiny part inside her sparking with dim hope.

Isobel raised one eyebrow slightly, but she didn’t comment, continuing her tale instead. “When I found out about his... magic , I started researching it. I’m a scientist, I wanted the answers behind it. I got into genealogy by accident, really, but then I found out that the earliest records of my family included a many-times-great grandmother who truly was a witch. I found out that Caleb’s ancestors had some of the most consistently foreign names I’d ever heard of.  _ Aredhel _ , and  _ Earendil  _ and  _ Voronwe _ . I spent years going around in circles trying to put these things together--I won’t bore you with those details. Eventually, I...figured it out.

“His ancestors were half-elves, mine were related to a witch-woman from that same land. And, speaking genetically, I believe there are certain recessive genes, incredibly specific ones, that only occur rarely to begin with. Say, blue eyes and red hair, or certain genetic conditions. I think that when they combine with a recessive gene passed down through the tiny fraction of half-elven or dwarven or whatever blood exists in a person’s ancestry, they can express themselves in a form we consider magical.”

In a bizarre way, it almost made sense. “So why can’t more people…?” Nairi started, trailing off.

Isobel nodded, picking up on her unfinished question. “In the times when half-elves would have been here, they would have been contained likely within Ireland and the surrounding countries, considering travel capabilities of the age. I think that people with any kind of non-human blood would all be within the UK to begin with, and if you recall the attitudes toward witchcraft and any kind of unknown in the past, it’s likely many were killed. And based on my own admittedly imperfect calculations on genetic theories, there have probably never been more than a hundred or so in all of the ages since elves have been here.”

_ So why me,  _ Nairi thought bitterly.  _ Why did it have to be me of all people? _ She wasn’t special, she wasn’t unique or influential or anything that would have made sense. But she supposed all of this had been determined before she was born, if Isobel was right. Genetics wouldn’t have known what she would become.

“Your grandfather was one of those people,” Isobel was saying, “and I think it skipped a generation in your father.”

Nairi tensed at the mention.

“Which brings me to the question I’ve been dying to know for thirty years.” Isobel leaned forward. “What can you do?”

Nairi stood up clumsily from her backward chair, stumbling sideways. She braced herself instinctively on Thranduil’s shoulder for a moment, but reeled away from the hand he tried to steady her with. “I kill people,” Nairi spat out, self-loathing dripping from her voice. To her great horror, tears began to blur her vision, and she turned on one heel and ran blindly out of the kitchen, back to the front door.  _ I can’t be here right now. _ Wrenching it open, she stumbled out into the chilly evening air, and she began to walk aimlessly down the path. Away from the house, away from her shame and her hate and her tainted touch and everything that she’d ever done. Just  _ away _ .

She heard the door bang behind her, and then Isobel’s voice calling after her. “Nairi!”

She kept walking.

“Nairi, stop! ”

Still, she ignored the woman. What did she know? What right did she have? What could she do about any of it? And how was Nairi supposed to turn around and face down the woman whose only son she’d killed in cold blood?

“You’re not a killer, Nairi,” Isobel called, sounding annoyed more than anything else. “Tauriel says you aren’t and I believe her. Now don’t be a fool, turn around, I’ve no interest in chasing you all over my bloody property!”

Rather put out herself, Nairi turned, hands planted on her still-too-bony hips, but she didn’t take any steps closer to her grandmother. From behind, a breeze pushed her hair forward, tangling it around her face. “What the fuck do you want?” she yelled back, watching the figure of her grandmother some twenty meters away.

“You’re not a killer, Nairi!” Isobel yelled again, raising her voice over the sound of the increasing wind. “I know what you did, I always knew. I still don’t know quite how, love, but I always knew.” Isobel was walking closer now, raising her voice less and less as she approached. “My son died.”

Nairi couldn’t breathe. Those words were her nightmare, and they came like a sucker-punch to her throat. The wind howled.

Isobel spread her hands. “You did and we both know that and there’s no reason in the world to skirt around it. But that doesn’t make you a killer, Nairi, I know you didn’t mean it. I knew when he died there was no malice in your heart. I know what’s there now was put there by that god-awful woman I had to call my daughter, and by the life you’ve had to live. And you’ve been so strong. And I have spent fifteen years trying to find you, Nairi, because I knew you needed to hear it.”

Through her wind-whipped hair, Nairi could see her grandmother, no more than five paces away now, with soft, gentle gray eyes. “It was never your fault, Nairi, and I forgive you. So would Donovan, if he could tell you so. You’re forgiven, Nairi, you always have been.”

Nairi’s knees hit the dirt before she realized she’d fallen. Something tight in her chest released, and she was left with a wave of exhaustion that went beyond emotional stress. Her breaths came raggedly, and underneath the curtain of her hair she could feel that her cheeks were wet, cooled by the now-gentle breeze.  _ Oh, god _ , she thought. There was nothing else she could say, as she tried to process it all.  _ Oh, god _ . Then, after several silent moments, she managed slowly, “I choked him. My, uh, my power is supposed to be manipulating air. I didn’t know.”

There was a long pause. Then, “I think the stew will be finished,” Isobel said casually. “You’ve got to be hungry; shall we go see how vegetables cut by Elven royalty taste?”

Something like a laugh tore from Nairi’s throat, and she reached under her hair to swiftly swipe at her cheeks before flipping the tangles back out of her face and standing, a little unsteadily. 

“By the way,” her grandmother looked at her with a laughing light in her eyes. “The king--”

“Thranduil,” Nairi interjected, grateful for the subject change. “We never got around to introductions, actually.”

“Thranduil,” Isobel continued. “Has he got a queen hidden somewhere? If not, I wouldn’t mind taking up the position. He’s quite tasty.”

Without thinking, Nairi shoved the woman playfully. “Nan!” The name just slipped out without her conscious decision, but, after a moment of panic, and without any commentary from Isobel on the subject, she decided she liked it. “He’s old.”

“I’m old,” her grandmother countered.

Nairi shot her a look. “He’s six thousand years older than you, at least.”

Isobel shrugged. “No matter, then. I’m sure he’d rather prefer you anyway,”

“Are you...high on something right now?” Nairi thought she wouldn’t even be surprised anymore if the answer was a positive one.

“Of course not!” Isobel said, affronted. “I’m just not blind or deaf yet, you know.”

“Really?” Nairi drawled, feigning disinterest as she climbed the front step and opened the door. “Well, nobody wants to hear what your incredibly keen eyes and ears saw and heard.”

She toed off her boots by the door and walked back into the kitchen, immediately meeting three pairs of curious eyes. “Who saw what?” Legolas questioned, and she groaned.

“Bloody nothing, that’s what. Now shut your face.” She turned to Isobel at the stove. “See what you’ve done? Just because you’re fuckin’ delusional--”

“Wait and see,” her grandmother hummed, lifting the lid from the stew. It smelled wonderful, Nairi had to admit. If she was honest, it smelled like the best thing she’d eaten in years. Enough of the nonsense. She was hungry.

Isobel ladled out the thick beef stew and passed out the bowls, each with a slice of hearty homemade bread Nairi hadn’t noticed she’d been baking. When the food had all been served and Isobel had seated herself, Nairi dug in with abandon, fully ignoring everyone and everything around her until she’d plowed through half of the potatoes, carrots, and meat.

When she finally looked up, Isobel was watching her with a satisfied, if rather amused gaze. “Would you like some more?”

Nairi raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got half a bowl left.”

Isobel shrugged minutely. “You could do with a bit more meat on those bones.”

Nairi ignored her, and took another bite, though this one was somewhat more suited to polite company and looked less like she’d been raised by actual wolves.

“Oh,” said Thranduil, and she turned to him with the fork still in her mouth, and her slice of bread in the other hand. “You do have table manners after all. I’d been wondering.”

Nairi angrily yanked the fork out, but this still left her with a mouthful of beef that would be too difficult to properly yell around, so she swatted his shoulder with her handful of bread instead.

When she’d swallowed, she muttered, “Asshole.”

“Hmm, unoriginal.” Thranduil replied infuriatingly, and she watched him elegantly sweep crumbs from his loose, plain white sleeve and then take a bite of his stew, infinitely more refined than her own manners.

Nairi swallowed a gulp from her glass of water—Isobel had vetoed wine—and smacked it back down on the table, swinging her legs to the side of the chair to properly face him. “You know what? There are so many things I could call you, but frankly they just don’t apply. You see, cunt is an excellent go-to, but you lack the warmth, and the depth.”

Vaguely, she registered stifled laughs and groans from around the table, but opted to ignore them in favor of glaring at the Elvenking instead. She watched him arch one eyebrow, no doubt with a biting remark of his own on the tip of his tongue, but she plowed on. “There are millions of words in the English language, and the Irish language, and Scottish and Russian and there is no way to combine any of them to describe exactly how much I want to beat you with a chair at any given moment. So why don’t you just shut up and eat your stew,” she spat out in exasperation.

He smirked at her. “ _ Dom oroth. _ ”

When she looked at him askance, he elaborated, “Plenty of words in Sindarin. It’s time you learned it.”

Nairi ripped off a corner of her bread and chewed. “Is this before or after saving the world?” she questioned sarcastically. “Either way, I’ve got so much fucking time on my hands.”

“You are already multilingual,” Thranduil said smoothly. “And in Middle-earth you would be immersed in it; it shouldn’t take you long.”

Nairi scowled at him once more for good measure, and then she returned to her stew, eating in silence. For a while, only the sounds of clinking silverware and muffled chewing broke the quiet stillness.

Then, Isobel asked, “How long would you like to stay?”

Before any of the elves could respond, Nairi cut in, gesturing with her spoon. “At least the night, I’m really fucking tired. And if one of you bloody fools picks me up again—“ she let the sentence trail off; it was probably pointless anyway. It wasn’t as though any one of them would ever actually listen to her if they thought they knew better. “And I get the couch,” she added hurriedly, earning a hearty laugh in reply from Isobel.

* * *

Nairi fluffed the already plump pillow Isobel had given her, tossing it down on top of the quilt she’d spread out. It was certainly a right sight better than a motel bathroom floor. Isobel had installed the elves somewhere else, and she would have the living room to herself.

“Nairi?”

She turned, finding her grandmother leaning in the doorway with a pile of black fabric in her hands. “Come with me.” Isobel said softly, shaking out the object. “There’s something you need to see,”

Nairi arched her eyebrows. Her grandmother had a heavy cloak in her hands. “Midnight witchcraft?” She snarked, and Isobel somberly shook her head.

“It’s just cold out,” she said quietly, “and I don’t have a coat for you.”

Reluctant and now a little alarmed, Nairi came around the coffee table and slowly took the cloak from Isobel’s hands. Admittedly she knew very little about Isobel, but all the same this seemed out of character for the bold woman. Feeling terribly foolish, Nairi slung the cloak around her shoulders and followed Isobel quietly through the front door. She caught the screen door before it slammed, feeling somehow like making noise would interrupt the silent night too much.

“Where are we going?” she hissed at her grandmother’s shadowy figure. There were no lights at all save for a sliver of crescent moon, shrouded in silvery clouds.

Isobel didn’t answer. She led Nairi surely down one of those stone paths, winding into the trees away from the house without slowing. As they pushed further into the woods, Nairi’s heart rate increased, though she hated herself for the anxiety. She tried to remember training in the Scotland trees, her eyes opened to the natural beauty for the first time.  _ You’re not afraid. You’re not. _

The woods thinned out gradually, and Nairi found herself looking around in wonder rather than apprehension. The trees and the land her grandmother lived on were beautiful, foreign and yet familiar and so terribly enchanting. This was the Ireland all sorts of stories came from. And elves, her mind added helpfully.

Isobel had led her out into a small flat field, brighter in the limited light without trees to cast their shadows.

Isobel stopped, her small dark figure tall and straight and stiff, and a chill crept over Nairi’s skin. She’d brought her to a graveyard. She pulled the stupid, medieval-feeling cloak tighter around her arms as she slowly, silently moved to stand beside the woman’s elbow, looking down.

**Caleb James O’Callahan**

**July 18 1925 - September 21 1973**

**Beloved son, husband, and father**

**Rugadh ó Dóiteáin, Ar ais go dtí dóiteáin**

Nairi swallowed, chewing on the inside of her lip. What was she supposed to say about this man she’d never met, who’d died before she was even born?

Isobel sucked in a sharp breath and gently laid her hand on the back of Nairi’s arm. “This was not what I needed you to see. I always stop here to say hello, though. You’re welcome to come and talk with him, if you like. He would have loved you.”

_ No thank you _ . Nairi wasn’t much for talking at graves, or even visiting them. It wasn’t like they could bloody hear her. 

Isobel guided her left a bit, and farther into the field. “I’m sorry, Nairi,” she said quietly, and she stretched one hand out flat in front of her, pointing Nairi to a second grave.

At first, she didn’t react. It took her a while to process what she was seeing, that this wasn’t some stranger’s name. And then, for the second time that day, Nairi sank to her knees in the grass.

**Liam Mikhail O’Callahan**

**May 14 1994 - November 17 2014**

**Dearest son and grandson**

**Grá i gcónaí**

Her eyes burned, but she didn’t cry. Nairi just stared at the headstone, feeling like her heart and lungs were being slowly crushed. He’d been their mother’s golden child, she’d always thought at least he’d be safe. He’d have Varya’s twisted brand of love, whatever it was worth. She’d never thought she’d see him again, but she’d never dreamed she’d outlive him. Drinking, using, acting suicidal, and her baby brother still died first. Her baby brother.  _ God _ . 

He’d been so small when he was born, a few weeks early and the victim of one of Varya’s pregnancy diets. She’d held him, only six years old at the time, and she’d never seen anything so helpless and tiny and innocent. And now she knelt at his grave.

“What happened?” She barely recognized her own hard, emotionless voice.

Isobel knelt down beside her. “He ran away from her when he was sixteen, and he found me. I raised him, sent him to college. He was smart, and he was kind, and he was so, so talented. He talked about you, Nairi he loved you. He wanted to find you.”

“What  _ happened _ ?” Nairi hissed. “What did she do to him?” She was shaking, furious with Varya and with herself, and, more than that, just devastated.

Isobel reached an arm out and hugged her shoulders, and Nairi didn’t resist. “He got sick,” Isobel said simply. “Cancer, it was leukemia. I was so proud of how hard he fought it, he kept telling me he was just going to live  _ because _ . Because he said so.” Isobel shook her head. “He couldn’t win. But he was always strong, and he never suffered.”

Nairi didn’t move. She didn’t speak, she barely breathed. Isobel, the gravestone, everything seemed so very far away. There was no wind rushing out of her control, nothing shattered, nothing moved. She was empty, flat and blank and her heart was beating only because it was involuntary.

Isobel laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, and Nairi barely felt it. “I’m sorry, Nairi. But you needed to know. Come back to the house when you’re ready.”

Nairi vaguely registered her grandmother’s footsteps rustling away through the grass, and she remained there, sitting sideways in front of her brother’s grave. Her eyes were blank, her face dry, and she simply breathed in and out, staring at the name on the stone until her eyes unfocused, while the night wore on in the sky above her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Кровавый идиот - Bloody idiot (Russian)  
> Dom oroth - Blind rage (Sindarin)
> 
> tumblr: midnightbrightlights


	10. Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: First off, Nairi talks more in-depth than usual in this chapter about self harm, drug use, and suicide. Read safely!  
> Secondly, as I told TigereyesF, this was maybe my favorite chapter to write so far and if I did it right, you should prepare yourself to be hit with a small elf-driven emotional rollercoaster of feels and pain. You have been warned. 
> 
> In which Nairi does not know how to keep a good thing for longer than five minutes, Thranduil gets the short end of the stick, general levels of emotional maturity could fit in a postage stamp, and Nairi takes two steps forward and one very large one back.

Isobel's house was built on the edge of a rocky hill. The front side of her property was all forest and grass and ivies, a quintessential, stereotypical countryside scene that Nairi numbly made her way back through sometime after midnight. At the back of the brick-fronted structure, though, it dropped off rather sharply into a valley, the descent scattered with boulders and smaller stones. At the bottom there was water, a creek rushing cheerfully along over the stones in its midst.

The back of the house overlooked the valley, and the living room opened with glass doors onto a deck above where she stood. It was dark enough that she could barely see the steps, and she tripped on them a few times going up the winding staircase, bracing her hand on the railing to guide her. Her own footsteps were the only sound aside from the faint one of water below her, and her boots on the stone were too loud in the stillness.

The wind had picked up by the time she got to the top, and her hair tangled in it, strands flying into her mouth. Nairi blew it back out of her face and hugged the borrowed cloak around her shoulders, going to lean on the railing. It was too dark to see anything, too cold to be comfortable, and she should have gone inside. Nairi couldn't stomach the thought of going back into her makeshift bed like nothing had happened, though, so she stayed, staring into the blackness like it was going to give her answers.

A single tear carved a cold path down her cheek, and she made no move to wipe it away. The salt dried on her skin in the cool wind, and Nairi stayed motionless, her mouth set in a thin, angry line and her dark eyes blank.

There was a time when she wouldn't have hesitated to throw herself over the railing edge. Nairi's mouth twisted bitterly. Her thighs would be forever marked with the scars she dealt herself with a razor blade, the memories of near-overdose would never stop haunting her. But for better or worse, she was alive. It didn't seem worth it to throw away everything she was fairly certain Thranduil had done to keep her that way. Liam would have wanted her to live. Nairi stood, with her boots firmly flat on the boards of the deck, and she didn't turn at the sound of the sliding glass door, though every muscle in her back tensed at the knowledge that someone was behind her.

Soft, near-silent footsteps, graceful yet solid. Isobel's hips clicked, Tauriel bounced gracefully on the balls of her feet, Legolas's suggested he was weightless. She'd learned to pay attention to little odd things over the years, namely for identifying her fellow prisoners so that they couldn't jump her from behind. Nairi's face showed no surprise when Thranduil stepped into her peripheral vision, leaning on the railing to her left with his hands laced together loosely.

He didn't speak, but she felt his eyes on her in the darkness. She could barely make out his face, seeing mostly the reflection of light in his hair and the white shirt he wore, but with his Elven eyes, she was sure he could see her as easily as ever.

She didn't move, didn't turn to look at him. There was an exhaustion she'd never felt before dragging at her bones, sucking the life from her, leaving her with no emotions at all, and no will to move more than necessary.

Finally, her voice cut through the silence, flat and harsh and nearly unrecognizable in answer to his unspoken question. "My brother is dead."

She heard the quiet exhale of his breath. " _ Hiro e hidh ab 'wanath _ ."

"I don't know what that means," Nairi retorted, beginning to get irritated. "It does not matter how fucking much you speak your damn Elvish in front of me if you don't give me a bloody dictionary."

"'May he find peace after death'," Thranduil translated calmly. "He may even go to the Halls of Mandos, if Lord Namo judged his Elven soul to be worthy. He was your brother; he carried Elven blood as well."

"You're speaking nonsense," Nairi hissed, turning away and biting down hard on her lip. She kept her left hand on the railing, but Thranduil was at her back now. "Liam was not an Elf, there is no Heaven and there is no God, and I don't even know," her voice cracked and she clenched her fist even as tears welled up in her eyes.  _ Damn it, don't you cry. _ "I don't even know what you're talking about," she finished in a whisper, all she could manage around the lump in her throat.

Against her will, the tears she tried to hold back ran down her cheeks, and Nairi bent forward, one hand pressed against her stomach, while her shoulders shook with sobs.  _ God damn it. _

Her gasp for breath was too high-pitched, coming out more like a wail, and suddenly she was crying so hard that she was practically choking, suffocating under her own grief. She ignored the sound of Thranduil's footsteps moving, too focused on the pain in her throat and her heart and her stomach threatening to rip her apart. Nairi brought her hand up to wipe angrily at her burning cheeks, covering her mouth then to stifle the sound, trying to regain some semblance of control. It was bad enough for her to be crying like this in the first place, let alone in front of anyone, and certainly not in front of one of the stupidly stoic elves. She turned away suddenly, trying to make her escape, and stumbled straight into the Elvenking’s hands. 

She was completely unprepared when Thranduil wrapped his arms around her trembling form, and she yelped mid-sob as he drew her tightly against him, saying something else in Elvish. She was a complete and utter wreck at that point, tears soaking the strands of her hair still tangled on her face and dampening the front of his shirt, her nose running and her entire body shaking uncontrollably while her legs threatened to give out beneath her. He held her up like he thought nothing of it, strong and unwavering and unexpectedly gentle.

And Nairi was furious. Furious with him for being there in the first place, furious that he was seeing her like this. Furious that he'd ever bloody shown up on her doorstep in the first place. She was furious with Isobel, for never fucking showing up in thirty years until now, for telling her so unceremoniously that the only person she'd maybe ever loved in her life besides her father was dead. She hated Varya for existing, she hated Liam for dying. She hated herself, oh, god, she hated herself, and how dare she cry like this? Lose control like this?

And how fucking dare that presumptuous elf think he had any right to hold her while she cried? How dare her body decide that he was maybe the only one she'd ever let anyway? How dare he take that risk, not knowing, when even she didn't know?

Blindly, Nairi balled up one fist and hit his chest, albeit quite weakly, over and over while deep, ugly sobs dragged themselves up from the depths of her core. This was everything she had never allowed herself to feel, everything she had squished down and banished to the shadowy corners of her heart and imprisoned there with alcohol and drugs and hatred, and all of it was coming out now.

She might have said something along the lines of "Let me go, you bastard," or it might simply have been unintelligible screaming. She knew she hit him, fought him for a little while, but he held her tightly, unyielding. He refused to let go of her, crushing her against his chest with his arms banded around her back, yet Nairi didn't feel trapped.

Gradually, she stopped fighting, and she found herself stumbling against him, hanging onto the front of his shirt, and sobbing her heart out. Through the thick material of her grandmother's cloak, she could feel his hand smoothing over her hair gently, but the comforting gesture only made her cry harder.

Nairi was fairly certain that her father had held her as a child when she cried, and perhaps an aunt or two or a benevolent babysitter when she scraped her knees. Beyond that, she couldn't remember the last time anyone had offered her comfort, had given her a hug. Part of her wanted to resist on principle, but instincts she didn't feel like fighting told her she wanted to be here, heartbroken and lost and vulnerable, in Thranduil's embrace.

He was warm and solid and safe, and burying her head in his shoulder and clinging to his shirt felt like coming home to something she'd never known, and she was seriously entertaining the thought of never letting go. He was still speaking softly in Elvish, and instead of the language barrier, all she really heard was the low sound of his voice.

Gradually, her tears slowed, and with several snuffling breaths, Nairi returned to herself. She could feel the exact moment all of the tension returned to her spine, and she let go of Thranduil's shirt quickly, stepping backwards.  _ You don't do this _ . He let her go, and, grateful she couldn't make out his face in the dark, Nairi spun on her heel and walked to the other edge of the deck, leaning on the railing there instead. Roughly, she brushed the moisture from her cheeks and eyelashes, and pushed her hands through her hair with one more shuddering breath.

"Nairi," Thranduil began quietly, walking toward her again. Before he could reach her side, she held up one hand in protest.

"Let's just… move the fuck on." she bit out hurriedly, wincing at the lingering hoarseness in her throat. "Cause I'm not gonna sit around and talk about my feelings here," she sneered.

He sighed softly. "Fine. You do, however, owe me an explanation, I believe."

Nairi turned to face him, her arms crossed, and squinted her eyes slightly, trying to focus him in her vision. Aside from the now clouded-over moon, there really was no light to be found in the middle of the wooded property. "For what?" she snapped.

Thranduil took one more step closer, and she backed up, hitting the back of her ribs on the railing edge. He towered over her, completely crossing all boundaries of personal space, and she swallowed nervously. She liked everyone far enough away from her to run from, and she certainly liked him at least far enough away that she had room to... well, do anything really. She couldn't put a name to whatever game it felt like they were playing lately, but his proximity was enough to have her leaning backward on the rail.

"I want the truth about the deer," he said simply, and she groaned. 

“There isn’t any,” Nairi shrugged. “I just got distracted.”

“There is a story,” he countered, “and I would like to hear it.”

"Oh, bloody hell, no you don't," Nairi huffed, caving. "I promise you, you don't."

"You can let me decide that," Thranduil shot back smoothly, slipping into that tone of voice that shouted I-am-the-goddamn-king.

Some part of her wanted to scream. Wanted to demand that they go back to when he was patient and quiet and not demanding anything of her, just holding her safe. But maybe he deserved to know. Maybe saying her name again would help. 

Aloud, Nairi just made an irritated sound in the back of her slightly sore throat, rolling her eyes. "If you didn't think I was unstable before," she muttered. "Fine. You want the whole sordid story?" She turned away from him yet again, bracing her hands on the railing and staring downward into the valley below.

"I was twenty one," she began, detached and quiet. "And I was in prison, again, as per usual." Nairi laughed humorlessly, mocking herself. "I stabbed a guy," she shrugged tonelessly, "didn't kill him, tried to, but in my defense the fucker tried to rape me."

She heard Thranduil's breath catch behind her, and shrugged again in automatic response, struck by the inexplicable urge to set him at ease. "He didn't. I stuck a knife in the back of his knee and severed all of his tendons and whatnot. And I should have gotten off for self defense but I went to the hearing high and they busted me for possession on top of stabbing the twat."

She laughed at herself again, a little more genuinely this time. The stories of her past did sound a little ridiculous when she said them out loud. And god, but she'd been an idiot in her younger days.

"So anyway, I met this woman in prison named Dixie. Killed her partner in an argument over their meth lab, but she would never talk about that. Somehow managed to hide all that from the police, though, so she just got a manslaughter charge--God knows how but she made it out to be some crime of passion, really fantastic liar. She was this six foot, two hundred pound woman covered in tattoos, maybe fifteen years older than me with spiky, all gray hair, and I mean she fucking terrified people. For reasons I will never know, she decided she liked me.

"So I'm twenty one, clueless as fuck, miserable, and very high, and we got out 'round the same time so we started gettin' high together in the middle of this trash heap neighborhood outside Glasgow. I at that point had gotten kicked out've the gang I was running with, and she apparently blew up her house before she got arrested, so we were both sleeping on park benches and shooting up whatever drugs we could find." Nairi paused, looking over her shoulder, and she could see Thranduil's silhouette. His head was bowed, hands balled in fists at his sides. "You want me to stop?" She said it like a challenge, but she was asking out of concern.

He looked up, his eyes catching the reflection of the dim moonlight, and shook his head. "No," he told her softly, and crossed his strong arms over his chest. "Finish."

Nairi cleared her throat. "Right. Sorry if this is too much for you, but you did want to hear it." She wasn't sorry to offend his delicate Elven ears with tales of her crimes and indiscretions. What she was was horribly uncomfortable with baring her shame to him, and repulsed by her own actions.

"Dixie was the best person I knew,” Nairi said quietly. “She was a complete fucking mess, of course, but I think she was good people. She tried to take care've me sometimes, stole me that corset top, actually, but I was way too far gone for her. She was the kind of person who talked sometimes about getting clean, and then would laugh it off like she wasn't serious because she was scared, or cause she thought I was judging her for it or some shit. All she would have needed was someone to drag her into a clinic." 

Nairi paused, collecting herself. "I should have done it. Hell, she was asking for help," she snapped out. "She was asking me, Thranduil, but damn it I just wanted to die so bad I didn't give a damn about her. She was hooked on the drugs still, of course, but she was doing less, trying to help me, and meanwhile I was hoarding all kinds of shit we bought or stole. I never told her about my father, but that was...the anniversary, coming up." 

Nairi dragged the words out through the lump in her throat and forged on. "I saw the date on a newspaper, waited for night, and decided I was going to die." Nairi turned to look at Thranduil, facing him, defiance on her face to hide her shame.

_ Look at me _ , the look in her eyes said.  _ Here I am, in all my flaws and fuck ups and here are the horrible things I've done _ . And if she acted like she didn't give a damn to begin with then maybe it would hurt less when he inevitably condemned her.

"I remember it was a full moon, and it was so damn bright in the middle of that park. And of all things, Dixie was reading the goddamn newspaper, fished out of the rubbish bin. And she was smoking god knows what but it smelled like shit and I remember there was so much of it in the air I kept coughing and choking. She wasn't really paying attention, and I…" Nairi trailed off, then restarted stubbornly. "I shot up so much shit I don't even know what it was. Was definitely meth and heroin in the mix, I think I took all kinds of pills too… fuck, I don't know. Point is, don't do it." She pointed a finger at him. "Bad idea."

"I fell over on Dixie. I remember that. I remember being high as fuck, and then going kind of numb and fuzzy and I was so fucking tired and I remember all that smoke up in my nose when she bent over me and she kept screaming. Had a really high voice for someone that looked like she could probably beat even your ass, and she kept yelling at me to stay awake, what did I take, all that shit. I blacked out, couldn't breathe, Thranduil trust me when I say I should've died. I should not be alive right now."

He didn't say anything, merely waited for her to gather her thoughts, but she could practically feel waves of disquiet radiating from him. He was upset, over what she didn't know, and Nairi didn't know what to make of that. She'd never told anyone any of this, but the words kept dragging out of her, aching and soothing at the same time. For years, Ean had been pushing her to just talk to someone. Wearily, Nairi shook her head at herself. She never did do anything by half.

"I opened my eyes and I was standing in this forest. And it was so...I don't know, fucking otherworldly—I was terrified." Closing her eyes, she could still see it, dark and ancient and filled with a kind of eerie mystery she could never understand. "Started walking, felt more like floating, actually, and I came around this huge tree and there was a deer sort've a thing. It was all shaggy and oversized and had antlers like nothing I'd ever seen, and it just looked at me." Nairi hugged herself self-consciously. "And I was all fucked up and dizzy, and my vision got all fuzzy ‘round the edges except for the deer, and…" she trailed off, her fingernail sliding absently through a crack in the wood railing. "I heard it." She whispered. "'Wake up, Nairi. Open your eyes, Nairi.' And I did, and Dixie was shaking me and yelling and I felt like shit but there I was, alive, and I didn't know what to think. So," Nairi chuckled nervously again. "I forgot about it, and then one day these three bloody elves show up on my front steps, and I remember looking at you all, and…" she shook her head. "It's fucked up, ignore me."

"Finish," Thranduil repeated quietly, fury simmering in the single word.

"It had blue eyes," she whispered. "Icy blue eyes, and it looked right at me, and then you showed up and you looked at me with those same goddamn blue eyes. And sometimes I think it was you."

He didn't respond, and Nairi waited, her heart threatening to beat out of her chest.  _ Oh for god's sake say something. _

"What happened to Dixie?"

_ Not that, you bastard. _ Nairi cleared her throat roughly. "Died." She announced flatly. "Couple months after that she tried to get clean by herself. Relapsed, of course, for God's sake the woman was hooked on fucking heroin. But she thought after that there was no hope for her, walked off a bridge." 

Something in Nairi’s chest ached at the memory. Not for the first time, she wondered if a part of her had been in love with Dixie, or if it was all just so rose-tinted in her mind, memory tainted by so many drugs. Maybe she would never really know, and maybe that was okay. 

Thranduil's hand slammed down on the rail beside her, and in spite of herself, Nairi flinched. She squared her jaw, tilting her chin up in defiance, watching emotions run across his face rapidly in the dim light. At first, she wondered if he was going to hit her, and she tensed, ready to hit back. Then, biting her lip, Nairi cursed to herself. He wouldn't. He wouldn't, this was Thranduil. She couldn't superimpose the men of her past onto him.

They stood toe to toe, now, with Nairi's back pinned to the railing and Thranduil looming over her with an intense, unreadable expression on his face. She stared straight ahead, afraid to meet his gaze in the dark, her eyes level with his lips. For a completely wild moment, she wondered if he would kiss her, and firmly squelched down any and all emotions that arose in response to that particular train of thought.  _ For fuck's sake, Nairi. _

He didn't, of course. Thranduil spun away from her suddenly, boots hitting heavily against the wood of the deck as he moved briskly to the sliding door. Opening it, he paused briefly on the threshold. "I will expect you in the yard with a sword in the morning." And then, without another word, he crossed into the house, leaving the door open for Nairi.

She stayed outside a few more moments, shaking slightly, and then she scuttled into her grandmother's house and laid resolutely down on the couch, clenching her quivering fingers into fists. She closed her eyes, but sleep was a long time coming.

* * *

She wasn’t aware of sleeping, but she must have drifted off at some point in the early hours of the morning. The shriek of steel sliding on steel jolted her to wakefulness, and Nairi jerked upright, her heart galloping in her ribs. She heard a shout, and then that same metal clashing again, and her brow furrowed. Her brain was fuzzy with her restless, broken sleep, and Nairi blinked wearily.  _ Sod off, I'm tired _ . After a moment, she stood, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. Nairi shuffled slowly around the back of the couch to the balcony door, wrenching it open.

She almost tripped on the ends of the blanket, but she stumbled to the railing, shivering in the cool morning air, and leaned over, staring in shock at the scene below her. "What in the bloody fuck?" Nairi burst out, hollering down to the three elves.

She had thought of Thranduil as an avenging angel once before, in the forest, and he had been beautiful and deadly and so decidedly other. He put that all to shame now. There was no word for him other than lethal, simultaneously wielding both of the swords she was so familiar with now like vicious extensions of his own body. For once, his hair wasn't perfect, but instead mussed slightly with the vigor of his movements, and she thought he actually looked a little bit tired. Legolas and Tauriel certainly were; he was dueling them both simultaneously, and Nairi watched them struggling to fend off his attacks with a set of crossed daggers each.

It was sparring like nothing she'd ever seen, and if she was honest, it was terrifying to witness. Nairi knew that for all the times she'd almost managed to hold her own against them, they could move faster, hit harder than any human, and she knew they'd had thousands of years of training on her. This, though, wasn't just the elves practicing without the hindrance of an untrained human, this wasn't natural. This was fury, vicious, unrestrained, blazing anger, taken out with steel on the only people who could withstand it and survive.

Nairi was small and barefooted, huddled in a too-big blanket with her hair tangled up around her sleepy face, and at the sight of her own reflection in the glass door she almost laughed. She was tiny and childlike and innocent in spite of all she'd seen and done, at least compared to these elves. And they weren't the ones who packed toys for children at Christmas.

They could kill her in a heartbeat. Hell, Nairi figured Thranduil could probably kill either one of them now if a knife slipped or something. Last night she'd scolded herself for assuming he would strike her. This morning, avenging angel or not, he was more hell than heaven. This was the man who'd been burned by dragon fire, who commanded a kingdom, and it wasn’t like she could really talk, but he looked like he was bordering on out of control completely.

For a while she watched, enthralled in spite of herself, her heart racing in her chest, and then Legolas's foot slipped infinitesimally on the dewy ground, and she watched his blade slide to the hilt, watched his face as he fought to readjust.

"Hey!" Nairi shouted out before she'd really thought any of it through, leaning dangerously over the railing edge. They ignored her. "Damn it," she whispered.

Nairi dropped the blanket from her shoulders and ran for the stairs, skidding in her bare feet on the dew-dampened wood. She was wearing a pair of practically indecent sleep shorts and a flannel shirt she'd stolen back out of what they'd packed for Legolas, and she looked fairly ridiculous as she clung to the railings, trying to control her momentum as she hurdled down the steps.

She crossed the cold, wet grass in a rush, stumbling to a halt just in front of them. "What the bloody fucking- stop!" Tauriel's eyebrows raised, the only acknowledgement that she'd been heard at all, and then moved to block another blow, either unwilling or unable to break out of the fight.

"God damn it," Nairi shouted, heart racing in her chest. "Fucking shut up and listen to me before you kill each other!"

Again, she was completely ignored, and with the sparring session--if it could even be called that anymore--happening right in front of her, she could see how brutal it was. She could feel her blood pressure rising, and, as she was wont to do, Nairi acted on complete thoughtless instinct. She had no plan, she had no rationale, she just wanted them to fucking  _ stop _ . 

She jumped forward with her arms raised above her head, intent initially on seizing Thranduil's arm. She missed by a finger’s breadth, though, and shrugged, throwing herself the rest of the way into the middle of all their knives, her forearms crossed in a white skin and blue inked imitation of Legolas's daggers. She was directly in the path of Thranduil's sword; if he swung he'd slice straight through her. For the first time, Nairi felt a frisson of fear, realizing suddenly that perhaps this wasn't the most brilliant idea she'd had.

She saw his eyes widen suddenly, the way he tried to twist his body away as if in slow motion, and Nairi swallowed, reflexively clenching her raised hands into fists. Well, shit.

She heard an audible thunderclap, felt the sudden burn in her fingertips, and then she watched as, for the second time in her life, she sent the deadly immortal arse-over-teakettle on the grass. "Fuck!" she exploded, hugging her arms tightly against her belly.

“Are you alright, Nairi?” She heard Legolas exclaim immediately, saw his hand reaching toward her at the edge of her vision.

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks," she bit out, rounding instead on Thranduil as he got to his feet, more slowly than she would have expected. “What the hell were you  _ thinking? _ ”

Thranduil, for his part, took one look at the miniature, half-dressed mortal scolding him, and his expression glazed over into a mask of ice. “I beg your pardon?” he ground out.

“You could have bloody killed someone!” Nairi threw her hands up, letting them fall back to her bare thighs with a slap. In a way that was happening all too often around him, her more eloquent words failed her yet again, and the only thing she had left to spit at him was, “You bloody dumb fuck!”

Thranduil’s entire body was perfectly motionless save for one eyebrow, crawling incredulously upward in a dangerously restrained gesture. 

“This is your son you almost just killed, by the way, in case you didn’t notice!” Nairi was ranting, ignoring Legolas’s quiet protest. She couldn’t even articulate why she was suddenly so upset, but there was a simmering rage in her belly that didn’t even seem to be quite human. Now that she'd started laying into him, though, she may as well finish. Screaming at the bloody man was rather cathartic anyway.

"You almost killed him, you almost killed me, which happens all the bloody time, thanks so very fuckin' much. I don't know what the hell that was but get a fucking grip on yourself!"

"Enough!" Thranduil thundered, towering over her in two short strides and looking murderous, and Nairi wondered briefly if she'd overdone it.

"I believe," he said coldly, "you mortals have a saying concerning pots and kettles? I suggest you 'get a fucking grip', and remember that  _ you will never speak to me that way again _ ."

"Oh, shove your misogynistic bullshit up your arse, why don't you?" Nairi shot back. "I'll 'speak to you,'" She sneered, "any way I like. And I will certainly fucking tell you when you're being a douchebag. Jesus!"

He inhaled sharply through his nose, looking down at her in scathing disapproval and clearly trying to collect himself. "You are late," he said simply after a pause. "Pick up your sword."

"You're about two years too late for me having that much of a death wish," Nairi scoffed back. "I'm not actually that fucking stupid, regardless of what you seem to think."

Thranduil's eyes flashed. "Then learn to control your power instead. Something productive." He snarled out.

"Go to hell."

"Stop this!" Tauriel suddenly shouted out, and they both ignored her, entirely focused on the other and the fury cracking the air between. 

"Nairi-" he hissed out.

"No! What part of no don't you fucking understand? Why do you never understand? Jesus Christ, I don't need your fucking help!"  _ Liar. _

"You fully meant to attack me, then?"

"Fine. Correction, you bloody bollix. I don't  _ want  _ your help. Who died and fucking made you king anyway?" 

It was the kind of phrase she threw around all the time. She’d formed the habit as an angry rebel of a girl high on drugs and too fond of lashing out at control and authority, and it was a kind of default response when she was uncreative and pissed. It didn't occur to her until after her brain caught up to her running mouth that she was actually mouthing off to a King. A king who-oh bloody hell-probably claimed his throne when his parents died.  _ Fuck _ .

And with Tauriel's quiet Elvish hiss in the background, she knew she'd gone too far even before she looked at his face. She still couldn't understand the words but they were delivered like a curse. And then Nairi met Thranduil's eyes.

He looked like he was halfway to strangling her, incensed and eyes flashing cold blue fire. And at the same time he looked like she'd slapped him, stunned and flickering with hurt under the anger. And she wasn't afraid, the idea of him actually raising a hand to her never crossed her mind. Instead, the look he was trying to shutter away felt like getting sucker punched. There was a dull, tight ache in her chest and she wondered on some vague level if all the drugs were going to catch up to her and drop her dead of a heart attack at thirty.

Nairi opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She'd gone too far, but there was more here that she knew she didn't understand, and in any case all her attempts to take back the words got stuck in her throat. She crossed her arms helplessly, looking up at him from under her lashes, suddenly right back to being small and helpless and underdressed and barefoot. God above, she was such a child.

And then Thranduil turned abruptly on one heel with that stupid inhuman grace, and she watched miserably as he vanished into the woods on her grandmother's property. For a moment, it was horribly, utterly silent. Then, Nairi heaved a sigh. "Bloody hell," she groaned, and sank down unceremoniously onto the grass, crossing her legs and shivering against the cold wetness on her skin.

For too long, utter, disbelieving silence rang in her ears. Then, Legolas cocked his head, staring at her. “What the hell just happened?” he burst out, and somehow it was so much worse coming from him. She’d never heard him say anything less than polite unless he was mocking one of her creative insults. 

Nairi cleared her throat, which seemed to be sticking stubbornly for no reason at all, and blinked at him. “I was a complete cockhead to your father, that’s what just happened.”

Legolas continued to gape at her like a fish, though she couldn’t tell if he was more surprised at what he’d just witnessed or the fact that she’d taken the blame. 

_God, you bloody gobshite._ _Why can’t you ever keep your fucking mouth shut?_

Squinting against the sunlight behind them, she looked up at the two elves, wearing identical expressions of stress and disapproval. "Right, well, I know I've fucked up, as per bloody usual," she muttered the last under her breath. "But if someone'd like to tell me how not to make it worse that'd be grand."

Tauriel crossed her arms, sunlight shimmering on the smooth leather bracers she was still wearing from their ill fated sparring.

"What do you intend to do?"

Nairi shrugged, pulling absently at a blade of grass. "Suppose I've got to go after him, don't I? I mean, hell, foot's already well in my mouth but I'd rather not shove it the rest've the way down my throat trying to…"

"Trying to what?" Tauriel cocked her head. It was a curious question, not an interrogating one, but Nairi still felt defensive.

"I don't bloody know. Do I look like someone that can do this whole apologizing shit?"

"Yes," said Tauriel bluntly. "Just say what you feel instead of pretending you lack all emotions except anger," she added dryly, "and don't let him run you through with a sword."

Nairi made a scoffing noise, but accepted Legolas's hand to pull herself to her feet. She brushed off the backs of her thighs and then sighed, turning her back to them. "Is my arse all wet, then?"

Tauriel made a sound like a snort, and a smile crept onto Nairi's face, picturing Legolas's surely scandalized reaction. "Yes," the Elven woman said calmly, prompting another curse from Nairi.

She shrugged out of her flannel, leaving her clad in only a thin grey camisole, and tied the shirt over her hips.

"Boots?" Legolas suggested pointedly, looking down at her dirty bare toes, but Nairi shrugged and waved him off. "Shoes are overrated. Now, if I don't come back, assume I've been unfortunately killed."

The bravado wore off as she stepped away from them in the direction Thranduil had gone, and she was reduced to muttering a variety of colorful Irish curses as she stepped through the thickening trees. She was over her irrational fear of the woods from last night; at any rate they were well lit now, anyway. No, walking alone in the woods didn't trouble her in the slightest. She was more afraid of what she'd find. Who she was trying to find. And really, what the fuck was she supposed to say?  _ Sorry I insulted you, I think? You really are an ass, though,  _ probably wasn't going to cut it.

Nairi began to realize that she really was wandering around aimlessly through the trees, and while she could probably find her way back out quite easily, she wasn't making much progress in finding the Elvenking.

"Thranduil!" she finally bellowed out, hearing only her own voice echoed back to her. "I am trying to acknowledge that I may have been an ass but I would like to find you first!"

There was no reply, of any kind, and she stopped, hands on her hips, and turned a slow circle. She was shit at reading any kind of tracks, if Elves even left tracks behind, and really how the fuck was she supposed to find a pissed off Elf that didn't want to be found?

There was water running somewhere to her left, and she turned her feet in the direction of the sound. It was as good a direction as any to go. Venturing off of the path, though, was something of a mistake to do barefoot, and she picked her way through brush and rocks with further muffled curses and some interestingly sassy comments for the plants scratching at her.

"Yes, indeed, fuck you too," she muttered as a branch slipped out of her grip to snap back and hit her hip.

Nairi picked her way down a rocky slope, skidding some and feeling stone bite into her ankles, and landed with her feet in mud. Scowling, she followed it, turning around a bend in the trees. There was the little creek she'd heard, cheerfully babbling along with clear blue water, probably leading all the way down to the bottom of the valley behind the house. And there, she noted with a raised eyebrow, was Thranduil, sitting on a wide boulder on the other side of it. He was staring down at his own hand in the water, red blood swirling into the blue, with a detached expression on his half-hidden face. He really did have a lot of hair, she reflected.

She watched him flex his hand experimentally and a snort escaped her. "Punched a tree, then, did we?" God knew she'd smashed her own hands into enough unyielding objects to know exactly what kind of action bloodied knuckles like that. He grunted in a way that might have been meant as a negative, and Nairi laughed. “Yeah, you did.”

He didn't reply; didn't even acknowledge her.

"Oh, wow, talkative. Great." she commented dryly, and she seated herself on her own stream-side boulder, dumping her filthy, scratched-red feet into the cool water.

"Right, well," she cleared her throat, wiggling her toes. "You know I run my mouth off, but I grant you I was a bit of an ass. So, you know, sorry and whatnot."

She saw his eyebrows raise, and then he lifted his head for the first time, staring her down across the water with his hair curtaining his face. "Really," he drawled.

Nairi huffed out an exasperated breath. "Yes, really. I am trying to...apologize. You could help."

Thranduil didn't answer her. Nairi propped her hands behind her on the rock, staring at him across the narrow water. "So, what's your deal?"

"What?" he asked her sharply.

"You know," she expanded with a wave of her hand. "You're usually delighted to tell me when I'm pissing you off and then piss me off in return. Wasn’t really me that motivated you to punch trees, was it?"

He didn't reply.

"I mean considering you were already pissed the hell off this morning before I was even awake-"

"You don't believe in your God," he interrupted coldly. "I know mine are real. And I have spent millennia that you cannot begin to comprehend in your pathetic human lifespan bartering with them to no avail. All for the sake of some grander plan. Eri-" To her utter shock, he broke off with a crack in his voice mid tirade. "She is dead to me for the rest of eternity for you," he sneered. "And somehow even when they judged you worthy enough to justify my sacrifice, Legolas's, they left you in hell!" He ended in a shout that had her startling on her rock.

"What...are you even talking about?" Nairi threw her hands up, pushing her hair back from her face along the way. She had never seen him like this. He was such a King, so arrogant, so perfectionistic, irritatingly put together, inhumanly graceful. And right now he was raging at something she didn't understand, losing his perfect control, and the pain on his face was enough to crack even her black, frozen heart in two. "Thranduil," she said hesitantly, cocking her head. "Are you drunk or something?"

"I might be," he agreed too easily, and she groaned.

"Oh, bloody hell. Are you actually fucking serious?" 

He ignored that. "There is never an excuse," Thranduil said steadily instead, looking at her now, "to leave an innocent, a child so important to you, in a world where all she can know is hate and pain."

For a moment, Nairi was completely frozen. Then, an incredulous laugh escaped her throat and she held up both hands. "Hold on, hold the fuck- are you talking about me? Are you blaming your gods for, what, letting me get addicted and jailed a couple times? Oh my God, you must really be drunk."

"You should never have learned how to hate yourself so much."

"It's called fuckin' free will, you idiot," she shook her head, the words without a trace of malice for once. "I made my choices. They were shite, but I made 'em. Your gods didn't do that for me. The God of my world didn't. There are no gods. And even if there were, they would never get to decide." She stood, unsure of what she was even planning, and splashed her way across the creek toward him. Nairi halted just in front of him, water up to her calves, and shook her head. "My mistakes were mine to make, though I think I should probably be flattered or something that you almost seem to care." She smirked.

Thranduil stood suddenly, shaking water droplets from his still-bleeding hand with a fierceness that matched the storm on his face, and Nairi swallowed hard. Somehow he always had an ability to leave her completely wrong-footed, damn him.

His gaze softened, looking at her, and, entranced, she held it, all the while barely daring to breathe. "You deserve an apology as well, I believe," he murmured, and her eyebrows shot up.

"Oh my God I don't believe it, someone call the papers, mighty King Thranduil knows how to admit he's been acting like a—"

"It was never my intention to let you witness—" he broke off and started again. "You may have caught me on a bad day."

Nairi muttered something noncommittal, hands on her hips, and a smile crept onto the corners of her mouth. "Yeah, okay, sure." She muttered, glancing down to her bare toes on the pebbled stream bottom.

"Nairi-"

"That doesn't mean I'm going to be nice to you, now," she warned, a teasing edge in her tone that surprised her. God, what was it with these elves? They kept drawing things out of her that she hadn't known existed to begin with. She shifted her weight awkwardly, and one of the rocks tipped beneath her feet. With a little splash, she stumbled sideways, her motion immediately halted when Thranduil's hand landed on her waist, bracing her upright.

"Graceful," Nairi snorted sarcastically, self-deprecating. He didn't let her go, and her half-formed laugh died on her lips as she met his eyes. Don't look at me like that, she wanted to say, but her tongue seemed hell bent on being difficult, and no sound came out.

His hand was warm through the all-too-thin material of her camisole, and she could feel the calluses on his palm snagging the material. She didn't care. Nairi was frozen, feeling like the ground just fell out from under her feet and her heart was beating like it was trying to run away from her. Maybe, she thought, it had the right idea.

Her feet didn't move.

Wind pushed her hair forward, gently into her face, and before she could react, Thranduil brought his other hand up to tuck it back away from her, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth and holy ever loving Jesus when did he get that close?

It was too much, she couldn't, how dare he, what the fuck— Nairi sucked in a sharp breath suddenly, hand flying in an instinctive reaction before her brain could catch up.

She was right handed, it was natural, and she dropped her hand in midair as her mind flashed with the image of his burned face. She'd already discovered that trying to hit the other side of his face didn't work, and really she could be so much calmer about this but she'd never felt like a caged animal quite so much before.

Nairi reared back and slammed her fist into his nose, feeling cartilage snap even as pain shot through her knuckles. Thranduil hissed and brought his hands to his face, and then she was stumbling backward through the water, hands up as if to ward off a blow. She took off without a backward glance, shaky with adrenaline and skidding around on the forest floor, praying to a God she had no faith in that he wasn't going to pursue her.

It took her less time than she thought to get back to Isobel's front yard, and it was completely empty when she slowed to a graceless halt on the lawn. Her thoughts were panicked, darting in all directions, and the only thing she could focus on with any clarity was that she'd made a mistake. She'd gone too far and she'd gotten too close to them. She could hurt them; she had hurt them and Nairi's teeth bit into her bottom lip at the memory of Thranduil, face covered in blood from when she'd inadvertently attacked.

She'd let herself fall into some idyllic world for just an instant, just long enough to let herself get close, forgetting the way everything she touched inevitably turned to ash in the end. Forgetting that at some point trust would be required and she had no idea how to actually let go and trust another human being.

And now she'd fucked up much worse than she had at the start of the morning and Nairi couldn't focus as she ran up the front steps and let herself into the house. No one was in sight and that was fine; the fewer explanations the better.

She had the presence of mind to change her clothes and to put her gun in the back of her waistband. For a heartbeat she picked up a pen sitting on the coffee table, twirling it in her fingers and looking for a scrap of paper, and then she let it drop to the carpet angrily. Notes were sentimental, leaving one wasn't going to help her.

Isobel left the keys in the bowl by the door; it was all too easy to fish them out and walk out of the house again--the whole mess had taken less than ten minutes. She unlocked the shiny sports car and slid into the leather driver's seat, realizing as she smoothed her hand over the wheel that Thranduil's blood was drying all over her knuckles.

She backed out of the drive in a skid of gravel and a screech of tires, flying down the lane to the main road far too quickly and steering with just her left hand, scrubbing the right one desperately against her jean-clad thighs, keeping her eyes on the road while they stung and blurred with tears she tried to deny.

Nairi hit the radio with her fist, spinning the dial all the way up and blasting the first rock station she found. It was loud enough to make her head ache, and her mouth curved up into an approximation of a smile that looked more like someone had slashed a line into her face with a knife. After all, she was hellfire and disaster, and self destruction was her specialty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was fun.
> 
> tumblr: midnightbrightlights if you want to scream at me.   
> I will also be releasing character inspiration photos there after you're introduced to them.


	11. Listen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I hope this is only exceedingly boring to me because I've been staring at it too long? If it really is that boring, I'm so sorry. Please hit me with a wet fish. 
> 
> In which Nairi makes bad decisions, Thranduil is both the world's biggest headache and the most incredibly dramatic headache cure, Legolas probably deserved better from me, and Nairi is unprepared for emotions.

It was just so fucking funny. Nairi was in her element, slipping back into the world she dominated like a second skin, and she was laughing harder than she could ever remember doing before. The stranger sitting next to her was laughing too, and she wiped her eyes with one last uncharacteristic giggle, ignoring the liquid splashing over her hand as she gestured with her glass. She couldn't even explain what she was laughing at; couldn't remember what was funny, but her stomach ached with it.

Everything around her was pleasantly hazy, her senses blurred out on loud bass and the chaos of a drunken Dublin crowd, with more alcohol in her veins than blood by now, and that was the way she liked it. And there was something bothering the back of her brain, something she was supposed to remember, a feeling of guilt she hastily squashed.  _ Fuck you, Thranduil _ , she thought, and it hit her like a thunderbolt. _ Oh. Thranduil. _ Then, she shrugged clumsily.  _ Well, still, fuck you. _

Nairi stumbled off her stool dizzily in the heels she'd made a point of putting on back at Isobel's, abandoning her half-drunk tumbler of whiskey on the bar. Someone took her hand and she let herself be led; swaying uncoordinatedly to music within a crush of bodies, laughing and tossing comments back and forth that had no meaning anymore. Hell, she might not have even been speaking English, for all she knew.

A pair of hands, a man's, slid themselves into the back pockets of her ripped jeans possessively, and Nairi was pulled suddenly against the solid chest of some hulking stranger. He smelled like he had missed quite a few baths, his smile was lacking a handful of teeth, and he leered down at her. He laughed deep in his throat and squeezed her ass and she let him, laughing back and pushing very halfheartedly back at his chest, slightly sweaty like everyone seemed to be. He was two hundred pounds easily and covered in rings and tattoos, but he let her go, swiping his hand against her palm as he turned away.

Nairi looked at her hand with a wicked smile forming on her lips. She hadn't really signed up to be groped by some random asshole but she'd come away from the exchange with a square piece of paper for her troubles. It looked like a stamp, colorful and decorative, and Nairi put it on her tongue laughing, and let the world spin away.

She didn't remember quite how she'd gotten up on the bar top, but she was there now and the view seemed to be a pretty damn good one, so there she'd stay. She was standing in her stripper-heel boots with her feet planted wide apart, her arms thrown up above her head, and she laughed again, the crowd below glancing over her unfazed.

The bass line of the music was a match to her heartbeat and she was pretty certain that there were currently drugs in her system she couldn't identify and didn't remember taking, and she just didn't care anymore. She squatted briefly to pick up a shot glass at her feet, and then she stood up again, tipped her head back, and swallowed whatever unidentified alcohol was in it. She almost tipped backward off of the bar, and Nairi laughed again, pitching the glass over her shoulder and throwing her hands back up at the sound of the shatter. She still had her gun wedged into the waistband of her jeans, and she vaguely remembered taking it out and gesturing with it. It was a testament to the drunkenness of the other patrons that no one screamed or ducked or made a scene.

Below her, near the bar, there was a couple intent on shoving their tongues down each other's throat, barely sparing a glance for the raving woman on the bar top. "Hey!" Nairi slurred, gesturing with her gun aimlessly. "'S fuckin' overrated, y’know."

The guy looked up at her accusingly, his girl still in his arms, and Nairi laughed again. "He’s not worth it, honey," she waved her hands with another laugh, staggering slightly to keep her precarious balance. "Jus’ gonna fuck you up,"

Nairi punctuated that statement by firing a round into the ceiling, shattering something and feeling glass shards rain down. She laughed again, tilting her face up to the sharp debris, completely missing the way the door flew open and the other patrons scattered.

"Fuck, I'm drunk," Nairi observed casually, her tongue heavy in her mouth.

"You think?" A terribly familiar, scathing voice spat out. She looked down, a glare making its way onto her blitzed-out features as her gaze landed on an irate Elvenking. He slammed his ringed hands down onto the bar at her feet. "Get down. Now." 

His nose looked nearly normal, she noted, though she could tell it was still minutely puffy. There were shadows of blue under his eyes, and she could see a faint smear of dried blood above his lip. It didn't give her the satisfaction she thought it would; instead guilt twisted in her belly. All this did was prove that she was an out-of-control, sick bitch. And that she spent too much goddamn time looking at his face if she could make out the difference in his nose half drunk.

Nairi pushed all of this away and laughed again. "Fuck you! I'm finally taller than you are! I'm the king now!" She mimed putting a crown on her forehead, grinning messily. "You're s'pposed to bow,"

"I. Do. Not. Bow." Thranduil hissed, eyes flashing. "Enough of this, right now."

Nairi cocked her head. "Wha...what if I don't wanna? What're you gonna do about it? You're so fucked up anyway! Got a heart'v stone and 's not like you're king'v anythin'."

She watched the way his muscles tensed, like he was making to jump up on the bar after her, and yanked out her gun again. "Stay 'way from me, damn it! You can't...you can't...I don't like you," she mumbled stubbornly.  _ Liar _ . Then,  _ shut up _ , she answered herself,  _ you're drunk _ . "Gonna… you're gonna… hurt me 'gain, aren't you?" Drunk was good, but god, she would have liked her tongue to be more cooperative.

She saw the muscles of his face twitch like he wanted to flinch away from her, but he glowered at her still. "Put the weapon down."

"Fuck you," Nairi returned fuzzily, stumbling again. The chemicals in her system were starting to catch up with her, and god knew she'd combined enough shit to experience one hell of a synergistic effect, and everything was spinning.

"Yes, perhaps, fuck me indeed," Thranduil spat out, and she blinked in surprise at the vulgarity he chose to repeat. "But are you prepared to walk away and condemn them?" He gestured angrily to where Legolas and Tauriel stood in the doorway like a pair of very intimidating bouncers. "Their lives in your hands now, Nairi, whether you like that or not. Get. Down."

Nairi was staring past him at the other elves. They were busy holding patrons back and trying to keep things under control, but she could see their expressions through her blurred vision well enough. Tauriel was pushing back a man with more anger than was necessary, and she looked to Nairi like the kind of furious that only came when you'd been lied to. Legolas just looked blatantly betrayed, and it hit her like a sucker punch.

They believed in her. God knew why but they did and she was failing them. And Thranduil was wearing a mask over his expression, shuttered away like the King he had to be, but she still knew every word she hit him with hurt.  _ God, what are you doing? Just stop. Why do you always do this to everything you touch? _

* * *

She didn't remember blacking out, didn't remember falling or being dragged down or anything else Thranduil may have done to get her off the table. Nairi opened her eyes slowly, immediately squeezing them shut again as the pounding in her head increased exponentially, and then she cautiously looked through her dark lashes.

"Oh, fuck me," she hissed immediately, sitting up with a groan. Nairi was staring out at the all too familiar interior of a police holding cell, and she had apparently managed to pass herself out on the corner bunk. She still couldn't recall anything past her drunken spat with Thranduil, and hell, when did the police get there?

The sound of her door unlocking had her snapping her head up, and then it slammed open and Isobel stormed past a uniformed officer, fury etched into the wrinkles on her face. Nairi opened her mouth hesitantly, and Isobel slapped her solidly across the face with her open palm. Her head turned and she winced, working her stinging jaw for a moment.

"Probably deserved that,"

Isobel scoffed. "Oh, indeed. Come, they're releasing you. Just wanted to sober you up."

Awkwardly chastened, Nairi stood and followed her grandmother, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "What happened?"

Isobel shot an angry look over her shoulder, silver gray hair swinging. "Which part do you need me to review?" She asked dryly. "Stealing my car and wrecking it, getting smashed in the seediest bar you could possibly find, getting high in said bar, firing a gun, property damage, screaming obscenities at your Elven companions…" Isobel trailed off as they reached a new blue car parked on the roadside. It was sleek and expensive but clearly nothing like the sports car she'd apparently destroyed. "Get in."

Wordlessly, Nairi complied, thoroughly scolded and fighting a hangover from hell. She winced at the volume of the door closing and shut her eyes, propping her head on her hand. "Good god. Wait, what did I do to your car?"

Isobel snorted, pulling out into traffic. "You're an eejit," She said bluntly, "and you fucked up. I don't think I need to tell you that you can't do this again." And then she looked at Nairi, eyes softening, and shrugged. "I don't know everything, you don't have to tell me everything. But what I can tell you is that you need to sort yourself out. And it's not my problem, Nairi, and I won't get in your way. But if you need my help all you ever have to do is ask."

Nairi nodded shortly, her stomach clenching at the thought of trying to apologize to Thranduil. Again. She inhaled sharply through her nose, and Isobel sighed. "Don't throw up in my car, please."

A wave of nausea hit Nairi, and she ground out, "Then pull over."

Muttering something to herself, Isobel complied, tapping her fingers on the wheel while Nairi, in an all-too-familiar fashion, hurled her guts up on the roadside.

"Do you know what you took?" Isobel said suddenly when she wearily returned to the car Nairi contemplated saying something sarcastic, then thought better of it. Silently, she shrugged, shutting the door and shivering.

"You tested positive for LSD and MDMA, among others. And heroin. Given your past addiction, the crash isn't going to be particularly fun," Isobel warned, looking pointedly at the way Nairi's hands were shaking on her knees.

"Damn it," Nairi hissed out, clenching her fingers into fists. Fuck. She'd forgotten how bad it was. The rush, the high, the fall, detoxing over a toilet bowl and hallucinating her way through nightmares, her heart skipping beats, hands shaking everywhere.

She slammed her hand down on the dash, cursing her own stupidity, and Isobel just shrugged again. "Make something good out of this," was all she said.

* * *

There was nothing good about this, Nairi was convinced. Somehow, in spite of having done this multiple times in her liberally checkered past, she didn't remember this hell. She groaned, letting herself fall onto her back on the floor, half on the bath mat and half on the tile. It was cool to her feverish skin, but goddamnit she still couldn't stop shivering.

She was wearing a simple pair of leggings and a plain black sports bra, her skin slicked with a layer of sweat, and she felt remarkably filthy. Showering was out of the question at the present moment, given that her last attempt had involved a bout of dizziness and a subsequent blue-and-black bruise on her temple.

Nairi cursed to herself again, throwing one arm up over her eyes wearily, and then she was scrambling upright, fighting the exhaustion and the ache in her muscles, just to vomit bile once more. "For the love'v God!" She shouted at nothing in particular, wincing as her stomach cramped. She scooted backward to brace her back on the wall under the frosted glass window, hugging her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them. She felt filthy, and not just physically. The hazy words she'd hurled at Thranduil, the look Legolas had had on his face… she could add them to the long list of transgressions staining her soul, that didn't matter. But nothing she'd ever done before had left her feeling like this. Guilty, flawed...she was poison.

Someone tapped softly on the bathroom door, turning the knob without waiting for her response, and then Tauriel's head appeared. She shut the door gracefully behind her, looking gently at Nairi's miserably curled up form in the corner, and went to lean on the sink.

"When was the last time you slept?"

"Oh, I don't know," Nairi bit out sarcastically. "Been a little busy being a pathetic fuckup and, you know, throwing my fucking intestines up every ten minutes."

"It'll help you if you sleep," Tauriel replied, gently insistent.

"What do you know about it?" Nairi returned. "Lot of heroin addicts in your little kingdom?"

"Not heroin," Tauriel admitted. "But your body is going through a great deal. It will benefit from sleep."

Nairi opened her mouth to respond, and retched again instead. There was nothing left in her stomach, and after a moment of dry heaving, she wiped the involuntary tears from her eyes and punched her hand against the wall. "Fucking-" she broke off, tipping her head to the ceiling and letting out an aggravated, agonized little howl. "God!"

"Nairi—"

"Just shut up!" Nairi exploded. "Just shut the fuck up! Why the fuck do you care? Why are you pretending like you give a shit? I am not fucking worth it!" Her voice was hoarse, she was crying now, damn it, and her hair was everywhere. She must have looked utterly deranged. "Get the fuck out and let me be unstable and-"

"Nairi!" Tauriel half-shouted, cutting over her and effectively ending her tirade. She crossed the handful of steps between them and, to Nairi's surprise, sank to her knees in front of her.

Tauriel reached out slowly, cautious lest Nairi flinch away, but the dark haired woman stayed still, panting raggedly. Tauriel gently framed Nairi's face in her hands, pinning her limp, straggling hair against her cheeks and forcing her to hold her gaze.

"Listen, Nairi," She said gently. "I'm not leaving. We are not going to leave you. Everyone has a dark side, I will not run from yours, I swear it. You never need fight this evil, or any other, on your own. I believe your people have a phrase about hell freezing?"

Nairi let out a strangled, half laugh, half sob, and Tauriel returned a smile. "Understand?" the Elven woman asked, shaking her head, and Nairi found herself nodding.

"Good," Tauriel said briskly, moving behind Nairi and lifting her hair. Wordlessly, she tied the tangled strands into a sort of messy bun, but somehow more Elven and more elegant. Then, Nairi watched wordlessly while she started opening cabinets at random until she found a washcloth, and soaked it in cold water from the sink.

"Wash up," Tauriel directed. "I know you're miserable but it'll help."

Nairi obeyed like a robot, pausing to retch over the toilet once more in the process. Her hands were shaking worse now, she noted, when she reached for the toilet handle.

Tauriel offered her hand, and carefully pulled Nairi up to her feet, steadying her through the brief dizziness. "Come sit somewhere else,"

"What, so everyone else can judge me? Hell fucking no," Nairi spat.

"Nairi," Tauriel's smile was kind, patient. "We just want to help you. It'll be alright."

Too exhausted and aching to argue, Nairi slowly followed the tall woman out of her self-imposed prison, making a beeline for the couch and immediately curling up her legs like she was trying to get into a turtle shell.

"Get something to drink," Tauriel jerked her head toward the kitchen. "Stand up and do it for yourself instead of sitting there. Moving will clear your head."

"So much withdrawal advice," Nairi observed sarcastically, but she complied. Tauriel watched her with critical green eyes as she shuffled across the floor.

"You have no idea," she muttered, too softly to be heard.

In the kitchen, Nairi was rattling glasses and pathetically failing at holding it steady under the faucet. In a flash of rage at herself, she lobbed the cup against the wall, shattered glass and water flying everywhere.  _ You are so fucking pathetic _ .

It took Tauriel a split second to arrive at her side, wordlessly guiding her away from the shards. Nairi braced her hands on the center island, her head hung low, and she didn't react when Tauriel laid a hand gently on her arm.

"Tauriel."

Nairi looked up, shoulders slumping further at the sight of Thranduil in the doorway, the Elvenking recalling his Captain. Tauriel nodded, giving one last squeeze to Nairi's arm, and slipped past the tall man as he stepped aside. Don't go, Nairi wanted to say, but she held herself back. It wasn't even like she could say that she and Tauriel were really friends, and at any rate she would always defer to her king.

"Talk," Thranduil said softly, crossing his arms and leaning on the frame. "Curse and throw glasses as much as you like; it is not going to help you."

"Why are you always the one that has to see me lose my shit?" Nairi groaned, throwing her hands up. "No fucking wonder you think I'm 'unstable'," her voice dropped into an approximation of his sneer, "if you are always around the fucking corner when I'm a goddamn mess!" Her hands ran frustratedly through the tangles in her hair.

"We are staying in a small house." Thranduil said flatly, and, were the situation any different, Nairi might have laughed at the deadpan reply.

"Not the point," she said instead, harshly.

“You may not think it, but you are more honest like this,” he replied very softly, like he was talking down a panicked animal. “I prefer when you are not hiding yourself behind a wall of feigned emotionlessness.”

"Not hiding myself?" Nairi laughed humorlessly. "That's rich. Fine. I'm a relapsed drug addict with a history of suicide attempts, arrests, and prostitution, to name a few. Now wouldn't you rather I was hiding?" she hissed out.  _ You are a pathetic excuse for a woman. _

"No." Thranduil said immediately. "Now you can see for yourself that you cannot scare me into leaving you. And you can cease fearing that I will."

"I'm a mess." Nairi whispered, looking down again. There was a pattern in the stone countertop that she could resolutely keep her eyes on, so she did. "I...don't want to be like this anymore. I…" She sucked in a ragged breath. "I almost died so many times, I tried to. I got stabbed, I got shot at, I got arrested, I got beat up. I sold everything I had and then I sold myself." Nairi's lips twisted. "And none of that...I didn't care. I didn’t care what happened to me, or anyone around me. And then you all showed up. You chose me, you decided I was worth something. And I never gave a damn but then I was  _ trying  _ to hurt you in that bar and…" 

Nairi shook her head. "Nothing that could happen to me has ever been enough motivation to save myself. But you...you all put your trust in me, and I betrayed that, and that is a worse offense than any other bloody thing I’ve done. I don't want to…" she trailed off. There were more emotions running through her at the moment than she could possibly hope to identify and all she could think of was that here she was, again, spilling her guts to Thranduil, and there were so many reasons this was a terrible idea. "I destroy everything and everyone I touch," she said, shame burning through her, "and I don't want to be like this…" Again, she stopped.

"I know," he replied gently, coming to stand across the counter from her and bracing his hands flat on the surface. "I know, so don't."

"It doesn't just work like that!" Nairi snapped, a flash of irritation running through her.  _ Are you even listening to me? _

"You are strong enough for this." he told her steadily.

"I'm not.” She paused, shaking her head impatiently as the ache in her body flared again with a vengeance. “You know what? I don't care."

“Now I know you’re lying,” he returned with an almost-smile on his lips. “Your problem has never been that you do not care, Nairi, and it is not the problem now. You care too much, but that is not necessarily a flaw."

While Nairi was processing those utterly bizarre words, he rounded the table, stopping with the toes of his boots brushing her bare feet. “You have always been stronger than you think.”

Nairi fought back the pained noise that threatened to escape her throat at those words, and she looked blankly ahead, eye-level with his chest and letting her vision unfocus as she stared at the fabric of his shirt. 

“I know it hurts,” he murmured, earning a bitter laugh in reply. 

“Which part?” Nairi ground out, still avoiding his face.

There was a long pause during which Nairi contemplated turning away and shuffling her way back out of the kitchen, but something held her rooted to the spot. She heard Thranduil’s soft exhale, as if he’d come to some conclusion. 

“Take my hand,” he said, and  _ that  _ had Nairi’s head snapping up to meet his blue eyes. 

“ _ What?” _

He was wearing a soft expression she’d never seen on him before, and he’d never looked less like the haughty king who’d arrived on her doorstep. She, on the other hand, was exactly the same, right down to the hangover and the unwashed hair. 

“Trust me,” Thranduil murmured lowly, and he held out his right hand, palm up, waiting for her. 

Nairi could no longer tell if her body was trembling in exhausted protest of its abuse or from the emotional wringer he was trying to put her through. Unable to come up with a reason to say no, she lifted her pale shaking hand very slowly, and dropped it into his waiting one with the careless pretense that none of this was affecting her. 

Her fingertips tingled like she’d banged her elbow the wrong way, and Thranduil’s much larger hand closed around hers before she could think about pulling it back. 

“Close your eyes,”

Nairi chewed on her lower lip. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

He huffed a laugh through his nose. “Hardly, silif-elen.” That name again. His refusal to translate it bothered her to no end most days, but for now, she just obeyed his command, rolling her eyes once for good measure before closing them. 

Her entire body was tensed, her already racing heart doing double time as she waited with baited breath for what she didn’t know. She  _ hated _ not being able to see, she hated not being told what someone was going to do to her, and the only thing saving her from total panic was the solid grip Thranduil still had on her hand. 

She still flinched at the feeling of cool fingertips brushing her temple, squeezing her free hand into a fist as she resisted the urge to jerk completely out of his reach. Nairi realized after a moment that he was speaking softly, words she didn’t understand, and her hand was still tingling. 

_ “ _ _ Menno o nin na hon i eliad annen annin.” _ Thranduil intoned smoothly, and an involuntary gasp left Nairi’s lips. 

The cool sensation had spread outward from the point of his touch, enveloping her skin like she was standing under a fall of fresh water. She let her head fall back, almost crying in relief as she felt the unforgiving pounding in her skull recede, her body no longer clammy and shaking. 

Just as quickly as it had begun, the sensation faded, and Thranduil pulled his hand out of hers, her eyes opening just in time to see him clench it into a fist by his side, silver rings glinting. 

“What--what did you just  _ do?” _ Nairi gasped out, reeling from the rush. 

There was a dazed look in the Elvenking’s eyes that faded quickly at her voice, no longer looking at her like he’d never seen her before. “Elves have some healing capability,” he said casually instead. “It seemed pointless to allow you to continue in pain when we still have so much to do,”

Nairi narrowed her eyes at him, feeling refreshed enough to be sassy. “Right there,” she shook her head, “that’s where you ruined it. But I suppose King Thranduil doesn’t do anything without a reason, does he?”

“Are you feeling better?” Thranduil inquired blandly, ignoring her comments.

“Yeah,” Nairi admitted, glancing down at her own hands, now perfectly steady. “I don’t understand  _ how _ , but I--yeah,” she trailed off. 

“Excellent,” he said smoothly. “We can continue your training then,” He reached out gracefully to pull an apple from the bowl Isobel had sitting out on the countertop, tossing it once in his hand. “Come.” He swept out of the kitchen without waiting for her reply. 

“Next time I have a headache, I’m taking paracetamol!” she shouted after his retreating back. Nairi huffed, shaking her head in sheer disbelief at his audacity. Then again, he was a bloody six thousand year old king. Probably used to getting his way. 

She followed him resignedly, rolling her shoulders as she walked. She may as well try to throw around some shit with her mind. Maybe it would take her focus away from the shitstorm that the past few days had been. 

By the time she was out on her grandmother’s balcony, positioning herself to face down where Thranduil was leaning leisurely on the railing, she could feel new energy running through her veins. For once in her life, she wanted to see what she could do.

Nairi shook a few stray hairs out of her face, squaring up her stance like Tauriel had taught her. “Push me,”

He considered her for a long moment, and then nodded once more. "I will, within reason. But eventually you will have to reconcile the woman you are trying to destroy with the one you wish to become."

Nairi huffed, rolling her eyes. "You know, sometimes I almost think you're just a regular pain-in-the-ass, and then you hit me in the face with all that six bloody thousand year old life experience. Thanks."

She watched him toss the apple in his hand again, watching her carefully.  "Are you prepared for this?" he prompted one more time, amusement flickering on his face at the way Nairi was wiggling her bare toes on the sun-warmed wood of the deck.

She nodded impatiently. "Just go before I change my mind."

"You should be able to catch this," Thranduil tossed up the apple again. "Envision yourself pushing air away from your hands, thus condensing it under what you want to catch. Create a hard plane for it to fall on. If you can do that, then contract and release it enough to make a flexible landing."

She watched him smooth his thumb over the shiny surface of the fruit. "Don't bruise it."

Nairi arched an eyebrow. "You do realize my hands are shaking, don't you?"

Thranduil smiled. "Are they?"

She extended them in front of her, examining her fingers carefully. Almost perfectly steady, and she could chalk up the remaining little wiggles to her lack of proper food intake.  _ Magic. _ “You’re still annoying,” she countered lamely. 

"Are you ready?" He promoted, cutting into her thoughts. Thranduil mimed throwing the apple, and she nodded slowly. If Nairi was being honest, she was about as confused as she used to be in her high school history classes a million years ago, but she wasn't going to let him know that. Not when she didn't even know what questions to ask.

"Hit me," She said brusquely, then snapped up her head. "And not literally, wouldn't put it past you."

Thranduil tossed the apple in a graceful arc across the deck, and they both watched it land with a thud, rolling a bit across one of the boards. Thranduil was impassive, Nairi rolled her eyes.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," she admitted, earning a shrug in reply.

"So practice."

_ What does it look like I'm trying to do, eejit? _ "Throw it again."

By the end of an hour, she'd bruised and pummeled the poor fruit almost beyond recognition, and she hadn't caught it once. Nairi was getting progressively more frustrated, while Thranduil was equal parts infuriatingly patient and simply infuriating. He was never discouraging, but he liked dropping all sorts of sarcastic, biting comments about the poor apple, almost like he was egging her on. Knowing him, he probably was. He did seem to think her anger was productive, apparently.

"Do it again," Nairi ground out, pushing her hair out of her face. She had to get it right just once, had to prove she wasn’t completely incapable. 

He complied, and Nairi watched it arc, straining toward it with her outstretched hands. Her fingertips felt hot, and for a moment she could almost feel the whisper of invisible winds she was tugging at. And then the apple fell.

"Damn it!" She cursed, running an angry hand through her hair again.

"Nairi, take a break," Thranduil murmured, and she ignored him, ignored the jarring, inexplicable emotion of hearing him say her name.

It was funny how much she hated failure, had always hated failure. She covered that with apathy and knocked it out with drugs until even she forgot, and with a lifetime of failing she felt desensitized. But under all of that, she'd once been a little Russian know-it-all that was obsessed with acing her science exams. She'd once been dedicated to looking perfect, and acting perfect, and performing to perfection. And though she'd been numb before, she had to let herself feel something to push through that sensation of being tainted. And god damn it all, she could feel the bitter taste of her defeat.

Nairi bent at the waist, hair flying out of control as always, and lifted the sorry excuse for an apple into her palm. She tested the weight, feeling Thranduil's eyes on her, and then, before he could say anything, she hurled it over the edge of the railing with all of her strength, throwing a Russian curse after it that would have gotten her ears boxed by her aunts. 

And in a Hail-Mary, fuck-all gesture, she pushed one hand out away from her body after it, throwing all of her pent-up frustration into the motion. The tips of her fingers seared red-hot for an instant, and the apple exploded in midair.

There was no other word for it. The skin curled back from it in strips, pale flesh flying outward, and it looked like a bullet had ripped cleanly through the center of it. An invisible bullet.

"Perhaps all we need do is frustrate you in front of our enemies," Thranduil mused after a stunned pause they both shared, sounding amused.

"It's not funny, Thranduil!" Nairi snapped out, still stunned herself. "I could have bloody killed someone with that shit. I can't," she admitted, caving back to her fears once more, "I'm dangerous, you can't…"

"That is the idea," he replied easily. "You will not be cushioning falling fruit on a battlefield, your gift is not meant for innocence, in the end. It is a weapon, and you are the bringer of fire and blood. And," Thranduil paused, choosing his words. "You can be all of that and worthy of faith and forgiveness."

She wasn't listening to him. Nairi was sitting back in the last Chemistry class she'd ever taken, blinking long-ignored memories into something resembling a focus. "I control the air," she said. "Right? Well, theoretically."

Thranduil looked confused at her sudden change of subject, but nodded.

"You said 'fire'," she murmured. "My hands heat up, don't they? Oxygen is twenty odd percent of the air...twenty one. So then...nitrogen..." Nairi wasn't finishing her sentences aloud, but then she looked up at him, her face alight with some kind of realization. "Oxygen is flammable. Well," she amended immediately, "technically it’s the oxidizer for other flammable gases… never mind," she waved her hand impatiently, preoccupied with trying to recall what felt like a thousand year old blackboard. "Nitrogen is. I should be able to…" She tried in vain for a moment to summon heat into her fingertips again. "I should be able to set things on fire. I think."

Thranduil's eyebrows crept up toward his hairline at that claim, but he merely said, "We would all feel safer if you pursued that line of experimentation in the middle of a lake."

Nairi snorted, tossing up her middle finger at him. "You smartass. Look, I need to see about a shower without breaking my head. I'll try," she added sarcastically, "not to burn the house down."

She wondered briefly if she was pushing the borders of bipolar again, crashing between perfectionist focus and depressive spirals, but shrugged as she pushed open the door into the house. _ It is what it is, just don't lose your head. _

"Nairi.” She was barely through the door, still adjusting her eyes to the relative darkness, and Legolas was striding toward her like a man on a mission.

She jerked her head in the direction of the bathroom as she walked toward it, checking once to see if he was following. "I'm taking a shower. What?"

She'd caught him in the bathroom doorway with those words and he halted awkwardly, opening his mouth to excuse himself.

She shook her head to intercept him. "Knock off that weirdly polite Elven shit already, would you? 'M not naked yet. What do you want?"

He still looked uncertain, and Nairi rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back on the bathroom sink. "Remember the last time we were standing in a bathroom?" she said suddenly, looking at him. "It was the first day I met you and you so kindly dropped a bomb and then followed me in here. Remember what you told me?"

Legolas shook his head no, his blue eyes searching.

"You told me your father was a great king, I said I didn't give a shit." She turned her hands out, palms up, and shrugged. "I concede; he is a great king."

"And?" Legolas prompted, clearly unsure of her thought process.

Nairi crossed her arms again, glancing casually over her shoulder to see the back of her head in the mirror. "He's still an asshole, but I suppose he’s alright," she admitted. "And the first thing I saw of you was an idiot fucking around with my stovetop."

Legolas laughed at that, and she continued, "Liam was so young the last time I saw him, but I like to think he might've turned out a bit like you. I...see you better now." she admitted. "Tauriel too, she's taught me a great deal." _ I'm sorry I broke your trust in that bar. _

"You were wrong about us," he mused, ignoring her little wince. "So is it so unbelievable for you to consider that you could have been wrong about yourself, too?"

That gave her pause. Nairi blinked, turning her gaze away from him. "I…" She shook her head abruptly, more to clear it than as a negative reply. "What did you want me for in the first place anyway?"

Legolas shrugged. "You should try extending your fingers and keeping your wrists loose; it might improve your control." He inclined his head toward the shower. "I will see you later."

He shut the door behind him as he left and Nairi flipped on the bathroom fan, the dull white noise matching the echoing in her skull, Legolas’s words from different conversations all overlapping.  _ You could have been wrong about yourself too. You are not your mistakes. It is not too late to start over, Nairi. You can decide differently. _

Tauriel was pushy, in a way. She had that red hair to make her stand out and she pushed Nairi to her limits all the time, demanded things of her and inserted herself into situations without any prompting. She was a warrior, a commander, and it showed. Thranduil was a King and an asshole and, well, a Thranduil, and that was clear too.

Legolas hung back. He was the silent archer, watching, making wisecracks with Isobel, sometimes she caught him pulling faces in the background. He didn't stick out and make a forcible name for himself like the other two. And somehow he had the words that always came out at the perfect time to throw her and maybe that was his specialty.

She undressed and walked into the shower as if in a dream, spaced out and introspective. Tilting her head back under the warm spray of water, she managed a wry smile. "Fuck you, Legolas." she murmured aloud.

_ You are not your mistakes. _

* * *

She still wasn’t used to the energy her body expended when she tried all that mystic finger-wiggling. Awake long past midnight thanks to the cavernous growling emptiness in her stomach, Nairi sighed heavily and untangled her legs from the quilt. Snuggled again into her stolen flannel, Nairi made her way into the kitchen and opened Isobel's fridge, blinking in the white light. She lifted out a plastic container of cold noodles covered in shredded cheese, and, without bothering to heat it, shoved a forkful into her mouth.

It was surprisingly palatable, and she had to remind herself yet again that, unlike her, Isobel was actually a decent cook. Nairi leaned her elbows on the countertop, eating leftovers in the dark, quietly contemplative. 

An unfamiliar sound pulled her from her reverie and she frowned, lips pursing around the fork. It was a little like an unusually low-pitched cat had gotten its tail stepped on, and, heedless of any and all clichés about curiosity, Nairi lifted her plastic container and went in search of the noise, still eating.

It was almost pitch dark in Isobel's house, and Nairi didn't bother turning on lights, just forked noodles into her mouth and grit her teeth when her hips bumped into things painfully.

Frowning to herself, she opened one of the wood-panel doors at the end of the hall and peered inside inquisitively. Oddly enough, she'd never yet been in any of these rooms, and she didn't even really know what she was expecting. It was a storage room, apparently, that Isobel had hastily converted into sleeping space. There was the moonlit outline of a grand piano shoved against the wall, a stack of cardboard boxes, and Tauriel on an inflatable floor mattress, soundly asleep. She looked softer, gentle and relaxed and statuesque, her eyes blankly open and glazed in Elven slumber. One of her hands was extended to her side, the fingers resting a handful of inches from where Legolas was crammed onto a second air mattress, and Nairi smirked, then shut the door again. They were so obvious sometimes, but, so far as she'd seen, not to one another.  _ Eejits _ .

She was standing in the darkened hallway, contemplating, when a strangled, cut-off sound had her jumping reflexively around. It sounded, for just a moment, like her name, though realistically she knew it wasn't likely. -Airi, no,  _ Eri _ . Eri like whatever Thranduil had said before she hit him. Eri, something powerful enough to crack the Elvenking's control.

Between herself and Dixie, she knew what nightmares were; hell, she was very intimately acquainted. Armed with her sleep-tangled hair and a bucket of cold pasta, she walked through the door on the other side of the hallway like she owned it, unaware of the green eyes watching her close it behind her. Tauriel nodded in brief satisfaction, and went back to bed.

"Fucking elf eyes," Nairi groused as she closed the door, squinting in the blackness. She reached out blindly until her thighs hit a table, then fumbled for the lamp on it and yanked the hanging chain. Light flared and she squinted, the room flying into focus.

She was standing beside the head of the guest bed, looking down at Thranduil, and for the first time, it occurred to her that maybe she had no business being here. He certainly didn't look like she was welcome.  _ Too late _ .

He was blinking away the glass-eyed look rapidly, sitting up with his hands crumpling the bedsheets at his waist, bare chest rising and falling with rapid breaths he was trying to control. She watched him hastily release his death grip on Isobel's iron gray sheet set, and sat down on the end of the bed in spite of the lack of invitation.

He yanked a foot away from her petulantly and she snorted, stabbing her fork down into the tub of pasta to hold it. "Hi," She said softly, for lack of a better beginning.

The look of displeasure deepened on his face, and he summoned a glare, but she could see through the cracks. "Oh, stop pretending you’re fine," Nairi said flat-out, lacking tact as usual. For a moment she wondered if this was what he felt like all the time, trying to pry emotion out of her like the jaws of a dog that wouldn’t let go. "Because right now you look like me and I  _ know  _ what's underneath what you're trying to fake, let go of the bullshit."

He said nothing, and she held his gaze for a moment, then chewed another mouthful of pasta and laughed wryly. "So this is how you feel when I'm being a bitch, then? You've got more patience than I gave you credit for."

"Doubtless," he finally sneered back, and she rolled her eyes.

"Look, drunken shoutings aside I fully concede, you're the bloody King. But do not think you can fuck with the Queen of bullshitting other people and lashing out to hide from her own problems."

"Get. Out." Thranduil hissed the words, and Nairi rolled her eyes up into her skull. 

“You have never once left when I told you to,” she pointed out, “so I’m not going to now,” In response, she received a blank look that had probably been perfected over six thousand years of court appearances. 

She sighed heavily when he didn't respond again, and tucked up her legs under her on the bed. "This is one sided as hell and I'm not that good at talking. Okay, you know what? Dixie used to scream in her sleep until I woke her up. The morning I met you and the rest of 'em, I relived my worst memories and then threw up. I grant you, I was also hungover but that's beside the point, okay?"

"Oh, is there a point?" He interjected fiercely, crossing his arms now. If she wasn’t still sitting half on his other foot, Nairi was positive he would have been up and out of the room by now. 

"The point is…” Nairi struggled for a moment. God, she wasn’t  _ good _ at this. But she wasn’t about to walk away now. “The point is, it’s okay. If I’m allowed to be fucked up then so are you, and Christ in hell, Thranduil, you're six thousand and something. If that much shit doesn't fuck you up then you've got to be a sociopath. And I know what you're glamouring, you got your face burnt as shit, you should not and you do not have to be okay!" Her voice had risen to a shout and she relaxed, glancing around as if checking to see if she'd woken anyone else. "You made me talk, now it's my turn. So talk. Because I'm going to sit here until I'm convinced you're okay and right now I call bullshit."

Finished with her probably useless little speech, Nairi crossed her legs stubbornly and shifted into a more comfortable position on the bed. She raised her tub of pasta, which she was beginning to realize was probably made from an entire box. "Pasta? It's actually really good."

Thranduil looked like he was considering something, and then he shrugged minutely and uncrossed his arms, extending them both along the top of the headboard. Nairi resolutely focused on not choking and not staring too hard, which may have proved a bit too difficult to manage at the same time.

Then, without warning, the left edge of his body rippled, and when she blinked the glamour was all gone, and he was sitting there with a defiant challenge in his eyes. He looked, she realized, the same way she'd felt yelling at Tauriel in the bathroom. Daring her to leave. Nairi went back to eating her noodles, smirking into the tub when she saw his hastily hidden incredulity.

"You don't give me enough credit," she mumbled around the food. "Jesus fuck, Thranduil, you think this," she waved airily at his burns, "is the worst you have to offer? Hate to break it to you but that prize goes to waking me up with a sword at the ass crack of dawn."

Almost. He almost smiled, just a little. And then he clenched his jaw and glared again. "Blind and foolish."

"Come off it," Nairi scoffed, rearranging herself again. She'd cut off the circulation in one ankle, and wiggled her foot around on the top of the bed impatiently to shake out the pins and needles. "Burns are not a fucking picnic, I know that."

She had bloody well better, she thought privately, because the evidence was right in front of her and for all her casual reaction, it was on some level horrifying. She wasn't really bothered, the casual front wasn't an act; this changed absolutely nothing. It was only horrifying in the sense that scars like this meant pain from hell and she didn't know if they still hurt, didn't know how to fix him…  _ god! _

Nairi had known when he flashed the back of his hand in the motel weeks ago that the burns weren't just his face, but the full extent hadn't really occurred to her. Now here he was, on some kind of defiant display, and she resisted the urge to bite her lip. The burn pattern ran from his cheek down the left side of his neck, over the top of his shoulder and down the back of his arm to his fingertips. The left side of his torso had been dealt the same treatment, and Nairi could make out a smooth seared line on one of his ribs that looked like his own armor had probably scorched and branded him.

Nairi looked back up into his blue eyes and took the plunge. If he was going to throw her out of the room on her head, it would be now. "Who's Eri?"

She expected rage or something. Instead she got dead silence, like he hadn't even heard her.

"Thranduil," she started, intending to backpedal or apologize or what she wasn't even sure.

He sighed heavily, uncharacteristically, and cut off her next words in her mouth. "Eriathwen."

Nairi pushed some hair out of her face idly, waiting.

"She was always Eri." Thranduil half-shrugged. "Though if you knew our culture, you would see that we do not often shorten names. Eri," he said quietly, pain showing on his face in spite of his best efforts to hide it, "was Queen and commander, and she died trying to throw me out of the way." Thranduil reached up detachedly and gestured to the unmarred side of his body. "I watched her burn even as I myself did, but she did not survive."

Nairi fought every instinct to fill the silence that followed with something tactless, waited on him.

"And the Valar have decided that she will forever remain in the Halls of Mandos," he murmured, and his mouth twisted with impatience at her evident confusion. "Elven souls may be reborn in Valinor--our heaven, I suppose--after death if they choose. At the behest of my gods, Eri never will be. Elves that choose to sail across the sea while alive go to Valinor as well when they decide to," Thranduil explained. "Often, lost families reunite there."

"So, wait." Nairi backtracked. "You never get to see your wife again? That's shitty. If your so-called gods do exist, and can hear me, fuck them."

His lips twitched again in something that was almost a dry smile. "They seem to find their reasons significant enough to justify it."

_ For you _ , he'd snarled over the creek between them days ago.  _ Fucking fuck, _ Nairi thought privately and ever-so-eloquently.  _ No fucking thank you, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. _

Aloud she merely shrugged again and said, "Well, she obviously thought you were worth it."

His expression flickered unreadably—she needed to get better at that—and then he said, "You have questions. Ask before they suffocate you."

Nairi snorted. "That obvious? 'Kay, I'll shoot. Does it hurt?"

"Not so much anymore,"

She noted with a twist in her gut that that wasn’t a ‘no’. "So," her brow furrowed. "Can I…" She trailed off, wiggling her fingers in his direction and once more rearranging herself on the bed, edging up from the end.

Thranduil shook his head. "Not your brand of magic," he said abruptly. "You can not replicate glamours."

She rolled her eyes. "Not what I bloody meant. Can I do anything? Fix...you?" She finished lamely, wincing at how it sounded. The entire conversation was so surreal and uncomfortable.

Thranduil's eyes softened. "No," he said softly. "It is of little importance." He shimmered again, and before her eyes, returned to the Thranduil she was used to, unmarred and stupidly perfect.  _ Fuck! Stop that _ .

She let herself fall backward onto the bed, hair spread out around her. "I'm tired."

"And you intend to sleep there?" Thranduil asked, sounding amused.

"Getting you to talk is a lot of bloody work," Nairi countered. "I may as well sleep on top of your bed. 'Sides, I'm already here," she mumbled through a yawn. "Moving's not worth it,”

“Not even going to stay awake to finish that obscene amount of pasta?” he asked dryly, lips twitching. 

Nairi turned her head to look up at him with a glare ready, but when she met his gaze she couldn't hold the straight face. His eyes were dancing and her lips quirked up and then suddenly she burst out laughing, hearing him suddenly join in, though admittedly more restrained than her howls.

Her cheeks ached and tears were sliding into her hair, and she didn't even know why the fuck she was laughing. She opened her eyes, wiping her cheeks with one hand and looking once more up at him. There was faint dawn light coming through the curtains now, it was earlier than she'd ever be voluntarily awake, and she was laughing harder than she could remember, spread eagle on her lost grandmother's quilted bedspread with an immortal king next to her.

It didn't feel like it had only been a handful of days since she'd been saying the same thing in a seedy bar, but this was good laughter and she was sober to boot. She'd take this over drunken laughing with suspicious strangers any day.

Nairi tilted her head up to look at him again, and her laughter died awkwardly, a stupid half smile still on her lips. No one had ever looked at her like that before, like she was infuriating and ridiculous at the same time and like she was still something precious. And no one had ever made her feel like that either.  _ Well, shit _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although I generally arrived on the writing scene after the era of big disclaimers, I do feel the need to state that neither I, nor Nairi, nor the elves, support the use of unsafe club drugs acquired by creepy strangers. Thank you for coming to this TED talk. 
> 
> Questions? Comments? Concerns? Personal problems? In the comments or @midnightbrightlights on tumblr!  
> Thank you for all the reviews and messages that have been so kind and have kept me going with this so far, I appreciate each and every one of you brilliant humans!


	12. Gone Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm so sorry this took so much longer than usual! Life got weird and I was really struggling with trying to make this not seem like a random filler chapter. (It still kind of is I'm afraid)
> 
> In which Nairi add 2 + 2 and gets 5, Thranduil is insulted and reacts badly, Isobel knows what's up, and some interdimensional travel occurs.

Nairi had always been terrible at sleeping. Even in grade school, she’d been a stressed-out little insomniac, choosing to review her notes one more time rather than go to bed at a reasonable hour. That had turned into three-day chemical highs, nightmares that invaded her dreams no matter how she tried to block them out, and now elves. She’d spent her whole life tossing around bedsheets before collapsing in exhaustion at dawn and finally prying her eyes open at noon, hiding from the things that haunted her. 

This certainly wasn’t the first time she’d found herself outside as the sun rose, having given up entirely and clutching a coffee mug like it was going to save her soul. It wasn’t even the first time she’d left a sleeping occupant still in the bed she vacated, even if it was in the most innocent sense, and had nearly startled her across the room when she woke up.

But Nairi had always been, first and foremost, a totally selfish creature. Her primary concern--hell, her only concern--had always been herself, her life, her safety, her constant battle to outrun her own demons. She was no stranger to nightmares, but they’d always been horrifying replays of her own worst memories. 

Nairi swallowed another too-big gulp of the burning, bitter liquid, wandering aimlessly around her grandmother’s property, and took a steadying breath, trying once more to banish the traitorous images from behind her eyelids. She had no idea what Middle-earth looked like, what dragons looked like, or how a battle was staged in the elves’ world. None of that had stopped her subconscious from filling in the gaps creatively, concocting a grisly reenactment of the attack that burned the Elvenking thousands of years ago.

There was something jarring about waking with Thranduil’s imagined screams ringing in her ears, the realization that she was haunted by something she had no connection to. That, and the vague notion that the other half of her ill-fated attempt at sleep had been ruled by hazy fantasies of silken sheets, bare skin, and ice-blue eyes. It was probably for the best that she had no clear memories of those dreams.

_ Sweet Christ, Nairi _ , she snapped at herself.  _ Get over yourself and do something _ . There would be no going back to sleep, and she was firmly resolved not to think about her own brain anymore, so she may as well take a stab at productivity. It was strange to think of practicing magic as something productive, but this was the world she lived in now, whether she wanted to or not. 

Feeling less stupid than usual without an audience, but still uncertain, Nairi pushed one hand out in front of her, still holding her coffee mug in the other. Nothing happened. Recalling Legolas’s earlier advice, she tried softening her hand, rotating her wrist and then extending her fingertips like she’d been taught a lifetime ago in a Russian ballet class. They’d moved back to Ireland before she ever got on pointe, but she remembered this much at least. 

Nairi flicked her wrist as gracefully as she could, and the tree nearest her shivered, all of its leaves rippling in a wind that seemed to only affect it. Blinking in surprise, Nairi very cautiously twitched each finger in turn, working from her pointer to pinky, and a startled laugh escaped her. 

It felt like pulling on the looped ends of tiny strings, and when they grew taut, something moved. She watched in something like wonder as her movements rippled first that tree’s branches, then flattened a meter of nearby grass, then swept up a small fallen branch and tossed it across the yard. 

If she angled her palm toward it instead of the tips of her fingers, the force was stronger, branches now creaking as if in a violent storm. A pebble got caught in the onslaught, and she moved her hand toward its motion, lifting it on a stream of air and fighting to control it until it buried itself an inch into the tree’s bark with an audible thunk. 

A spark of pride warmed her chest as she looked at it, the result of something she’d actually intended for her powers to do. Her control was marginal at best, and the whole thing felt rather like trying to balance an elephant on the tip of her finger, but this was still more than she’d ever had before. And maybe now that she could understand what it felt like even a little bit, she could stop herself from hurting anyone else. 

Her eyes fell on the discarded coffee mug, on its side in the grass where she must have let go of it. Slowly, Nairi reached for those tiny strings again, tugging on the end of one until she had the grass next to the handle moving. With all the cautious precision of a heart surgeon, she shifted her hand just slightly, barely breathing, as she tried to figure out what movement would pull something toward her instead of winds just pushing it away. 

Finally, she turned her hand over, palm facing the sky, and curled her fingers inward gently, her eyes never leaving her grandmother’s old ceramic dishware. It wiggled once, and then, to Nairi’s breathless triumph, rose a few inches off the ground, balancing steadily enough that, had there been anything left in it, she wouldn’t have spilled. 

She’d completely tuned out her surroundings, her world shrinking to the size of just that mug, and Nairi almost jumped out of her skin at the sensation of a hand landing on her shoulder. The mug fell, landing just perfectly against a rock embedded in the ground, and cracked neatly in half. Nairi swore, spun around, and narrowly missed smashing into Thranduil’s jaw with the top of her head. “Jesus bloody Christ!”

“I thought you would have heard me,” he murmured, looking rather amused by her anger. He’d put one hand on her arm to steady her, and she was intensely aware of the fact that he was still holding onto her. 

“You can’t just sneak up on me!” Nairi went on, settling into the comfortingly familiar territory of annoyance. “I could have--”

“No harm done, silif-elen,” he cut her off smoothly, and  _ god when was he going to stop touching her. _

Nairi growled at him, taking the matter into her own hands and ripping her arm out of his grasp. “Stop calling me things I can’t understand!”

He offered her a shrug instead of replying, an uncharacteristic hesitancy in his expression that she didn’t remember ever seeing before. Nairi huffed, her hands going up restlessly to run through her hair. “What do you even want?”

He smoothly produced two sets of daggers, holding them so one pair of silver handles was held out to her. “Practice?”

Nairi’s eyes rolled, and she shook her head at him, nonetheless shrugging out of her oversized t-shirt. “God, you really do hate me.” There was no practical advantage to fighting in the strappy black sports bra Isobel had given her instead of a t-shirt, and she knew that. God, what the hell was she  _ doing? _

She accepted the proffered knives from him, not missing the flash of his gaze over her bared stomach. “Aren’t swords supposed to be your thing?” she asked bluntly, squinting up at him against the increasing brightness of the rising sun.

He shrugged once, rolling his broad shoulders. “I want to see what Tauriel has taught you.”

“So this is a test.” Nairi backed up a few steps to square off, flicking her wrists automatically to position the knives.

“You always believe what I do with you is a test,” he countered.

“Isn’t it?” Nairi shot back. She knew on some level that she was just trying to pick a fight. There was something about him that made her feel like she was spinning out of control no matter what she did, that he was ripping the ground from under her feet over and over again. Her defensive mechanism had always been to lash out first.

“No,” Thranduil replied smoothly, steadily holding her gaze until she looked away. When he spoke again, there was a hard strength to his words that surprised her. “I merely have no desire to ever see you dead.”

Then again, she was here to be his kingdom’s weapon, wasn’t she? A dead Nairi would be no good to anyone on this world or any other. She grunted noncommittally and gestured with one of her knives. “Let’s have it, then.”

He launched at her suddenly with a full-body hit that she had no hope of blocking, and she managed a resigned-sounding moan as she fell. Nairi hit the ground hard, feeling the breath leave her lungs in a rush, and then she was pushing her body into a somersault and climbing back to her feet on instinct, ignoring the stinging from where her skin hit rocks. Maybe she’d learned something from Tauriel after all. She spun back on one heel to face down her opponent, rolling the knife over the back of her hand once. A little spark of pride welled up in her chest at the realization that she could do that now without dropping the weapon on her foot.

They circled, eyeing one another, and then Nairi lunged, sending the sounds of ringing steel through the clear air. Thranduil’s lips twitched into the briefest smirk, and she shook her head.

“Stop laughing at me!” Nairi demanded, rolling her eyes and blocking one casual strike from him with her left-hand knife. His eyes glinted with mischief, and she had a split second to brace herself before he was flying at her with all of his inhumane grace and speed. 

She swore colorfully, her human instincts no match, and gasped as he ducked under her strike and banded his arm suddenly around her waist, yanking her off-balance and back against his chest. His lower arm pressed one blade carefully against her side, the metal cold against her skin, while the other was angled at her neck, ready to slice all the blood out of her in a matter of minutes.

“You really shouldn’t let someone do this,” he murmured silkily in her ear, and she shivered involuntarily at his soft breath on her neck. “I could slit your throat.”

“No shit,” Nairi muttered back, squirming in vain against the iron band of his arm around her waist. “But you  _ won’t _ ,” she went on, and that was the important bit. He would never risk hurting her, not really, not when he needed her alive. She still had knives in her hands, and one of her arms was free. In any other fight, she wouldn’t dare try moving any limbs with a knife to her throat. 

But the basics of any manipulation was to control whatever the opponent wanted. And he needed her alive. She raised her free hand, blade extended, toward her own ribcage, looking for all the world like she was about to plunge it into her own heart. 

Thranduil’s arms fell off her so quickly it was almost laughable, and she danced back out of his reach while he was lunging for the blade in her hand instead. It took him a split second to realize he’d been played, and the sheer fury flashing in his blue eyes almost gave her a heart attack. Maybe she’d gone too far. 

“Do not  _ ever _ try something like that again,” he growled, his voice so low it was barely understandable. 

Nairi swallowed. “What, exploit my enemy’s weaknesses? I thought that was the point.”

He scowled at her, no longer bothering to maintain a fighting stance, his anger fading into something like hurt. “My  _ weakness? _ ”

“You need me alive,” she said simply, shrugging. “What? It worked, and it’s not like I’m stupid enough to try that on anyone else.” It was simple logic. 

“But why would you--” Apparently that simplicity was lost on him. He was somewhere between angry and upset and patronizing, and Nairi crossed her arms, careful of the daggers she hadn’t bothered to put down. 

“I’m small,” she said sharply, “even for a human. I will never be as fast as an elf, it’s not a matter of just doing some bloody pushups and then I’ll be as strong as you. I can’t beat you in a fight, so I have to be smarter. And I’m not some great battle strategist but I know a hell of a lot about what people want. You wouldn’t be putting as much effort into training me as you are if I was expendable, that’s probably why you got all fucking weird when I told you about overdosing. You need me alive, I needed you to let me go.” Nairi shrugged again, studying him as she tried to wrap her head around why he was so ruffled. 

Thranduil’s mouth actually parted in shock as he stared at her. “That’s why I…” A sneer twisted his mouth. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he finally said dismissively. “We’re done here.”

Before she could react, the Elvenking spun on his heel and was striding angrily back toward her grandmother’s house. Nairi watched him go, finally jolted into motion as she watched him slam the screen door behind him, smiling a little at a responding screech of Irish. 

_ Jesus bloody Christ _ . “What the fuck just happened?” she yelled to no one in particular, throwing her hands up. 

She became slowly aware of a stinging sensation running down the back of her bicep, and peered awkwardly around at her arm, swearing. Somewhere in the midst of all of that, she’d sliced a line into her arm, cutting through the design of her tattoo and sending blood running down her forearm. Just bloody perfect. 

Nairi trudged back toward the house resignedly, hoping that Isobel would have some kind of first aid kit under a sink. Her grandmother would be none too pleased, and the thought was strangely amusing. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had scolded her for getting hurt. If she slipped in quietly, though, maybe she could avoid the nonsense. It wasn’t like she needed fussing; she’d certainly had worse. 

Of course, she’d no sooner stepped over the threshold than Isobel was there, her face already dark with anger and getting rapidly more unimpressed. “Nairi, what did you--” she huffed, cursing under her breath, and then threw out over her shoulder, “What the hell did you do to my granddaughter, young man?”

Nairi couldn’t help it. An unladylike, snorting laugh burst out of her, and she clamped a hand over her mouth, blood dripping lazily on the doormat all the while. “Isobel, he’s so much fucking older than you.”

Isobel shrugged. “So?”

“Nan,” Nairi groaned out, still struggling to keep her face straight. “Just...it’s fine. I did it myself anyway. Just let me--” she wrestled her arm out of Isobel’s worrying hands. “There’s a first-aid kit in the bathroom, yeah?”

Her grandmother sighed noisily, but nodded, moving to the side to let Nairi past her in the hallway. 

Thranduil’s voice called to her impatiently from the living room as she moved past, but she ignored him, pretending she didn’t notice he was--of course--following her to the bathroom now. She contemplated shutting the door on him, but ultimately decided she didn’t care quite that much.

Nairi sat backward on the closed lid of the toilet, reaching out with one foot to kick the under-the-sink cupboard door shut, and set up the first aid kit on the top of the toilet tank. She’d done this so many times that it was practically its own kind of ritual now, one that she was very intensely aware of Thranduil watching from the doorway. 

At this point, not acknowledging him was more likely to earn her a lecture about awareness than anything, so she peered into the kit and sighed resignedly. “What do you want?”

Without waiting for his response, she continued the familiar process. A splash of rubbing alcohol--vodka worked on the street--wide, looping stitches through her flesh, the burn of the alcohol-laced needle stinging her skin, biting into her lip or chewing a little on the edges of her tongue while she tugged on the thread. 

“You should be more careful,”

Nairi’s hand thumped onto the back of the toilet tank and she turned over her shoulder with a look of sarcastic exasperation. “Well I didn’t fucking do it on purpose!”

In the mirror, she watched Thranduil’s head tilt contemplatively, and tied off the end of her thread, ignoring the messy-looking knot. Rising, she flipped on the tap and shoved her arm under the running water, scrubbing the blood off, and held his gaze in the mirror. “ _ What? _ Stop chewing on your tongue and say whatever the fuck you’re waiting to say instead of bloody staring at me!”

“The tattoo,” he said finally, “what does it represent?”

Nairi straightened, drying her skin off with a hand towel, and gave her shoulders an experimental roll to test the pain. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she returned, pulling a face at him, and tossed the kit back under the sink. “It’s just a design, a mandala.”

She could almost see his brain trying to comprehend the concept, and shook her head impatiently, slipping past his tall frame in the doorway. “What is wrong with you? Come on.”

Nairi split off to get a new shirt out of her meager bag of belongings, and by the time she made it into the kitchen, there was already some kind of heated debate in progress.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I know that you--” Isobel was saying briskly, breaking off immediately when she caught sight of Nairi. Leaning on the back of a dining chair, Thranduil shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his chest, looking vaguely unsettled.

“Funny how all conversation ceases when I walk into a room,” Nairi commented dryly, making a beeline for the refrigerator and peering inside.

“Timing, Nairi Anastasia,” her grandmother sighed wearily, cutting into a loaf of homemade bread. “Get out’ve the fridge, come here and make a sandwich. Leave you alone in there and you’ll eat all my pasta again.”

Nairi snorted, complying, and reached for the sliced bread. “Fine. And don’t call me that, Nan.” Her tone brooked no argument. She shoved the hastily-constructed sandwich into her mouth, pinning it between her teeth to leave her hands free, and turned away from the table.

“Where are you going?” Thranduil asked her suddenly, his expression suspiciously amused.

Nairi yanked her lunch out of her mouth, mumbling around the pieces of bread and fixings. “I’ve got shit to work on.” Because, apparently, she’d run out of time to procrastinate on figuring out how to control her little so-called gift, and she had the distinct feeling that she was going to be seriously up shit creek if she didn’t do something about it. And even her small success was addicting, exhilarating instead of paralyzing. 

“You’ve lost a great deal of blood--”

“Biologically speaking,” Nairi cut him off, “I can lose at least another half litre before you have to actually worry.”

“In any case,” he said firmly, fixing her with a stern blue stare. “Other plans are irrelevant. We’ve lost too much time here already, our return to middle Earth is overdue.”

“Excuse me?” Nairi choked out around her sandwich, pulling it quickly out of her mouth. “Why the fuck’m I only hearing about this now?”

“Because the decision was not made until now,” Thranduil returned tiredly. 

Nairi rounded immediately on her grandmother. “What the fuck did you say to him?”

Isobel’s lips twitched, and she gave a minute shrug. Nairi rolled her eyes impatiently, alarm running through her veins.  _ I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I can’t.  _ Aloud, she began, “I am not about to--”

“We have been careless,” Thranduil cut her off coolly, “while there are lives at stake. You may finish your training in the Greenwood.”

She huffed in irritation at his patronizing tone. “Thank you for your permission,” she said dryly. 

“We cannot waste any more time here,” he said flatly. “And we will learn nothing more in this place.”

“That’s all well and good,” Nairi set down the remaining half of her sandwich on the table and folded her arms. “But last I checked, you can’t take the Irish Rail to middle Earth. And I suppose it hardly matters at this point, but all the same, why the fuck didn’t you give me any warning about crossing...dimensions or whatever? ‘Morning, Nairi, lovely t’ see you. Sleep well? Oh, by the way, we’re goin’ to jump into another world this afternoon’!” she bit out with her usual brand of sarcastic, dramatic flair.

Thranduil’s eyes seemed to soften slightly as he watched her, but he responded curtly, “Have some faith, Nairi.” Somehow she got the feeling he wasn’t just talking about travel plans. 

She arched a brow at him. “Fine. Are we going to keep standing around the kitchen snapping at each other or are we going to do something?”

Her words seemed to cue Tauriel into motion from her place in the doorway, and the elf woman was every inch the military captain as she straightened up and began to speak. Nearly everything she said went completely over Nairi’s head, though, as it seemed to be some kind of English-Elvish hybrid. Standing awkwardly out of place, her eyes flicked between the three elves, the two blond men listening intently to Tauriel. It was like whatever she was saying didn’t have English equivalents, because she kept shooting brief, frustrated looks in Nairi’s direction before giving in and filling in the blanks with Sindarin.

“Nairi.”

She turned sharply at the sound, looking at her grandmother over her shoulder. Isobel jerked her head in the direction of the hallway, and then looked briefly at the elves.

“Whatever preparations you need to make, do them without her.”

Nairi cut off her sound of protest in her throat when she realized that none of the elves even bothered to respond.  _ I feel so valuable _ , she thought bitterly, following Isobel down the hallway and into her grandmother’s room. Then, fiercely, _ I need to fucking learn Elvish _ .

“What?” she crossed her arms and looked at Isobel. The older woman simply shut the door behind her, prompting an involuntary twinge of nervousness in Nairi’s belly. “If you’ve got any more dead relatives up your sleeve, swear to God, Nan--”

“No, Nairi,” Isobel said with gentle impatience, and sat on the edge of her bed, smoothing out the duvet beside her. “Sit down.”

Hesitating, Nairi obeyed. “What?” she prompted briskly.

“We’re going to talk,” Isobel explained, “because I have not seen you for thirty years and I may never have the opportunity to see you again, and I need to say things.”

“Well I’m not going to die--”

“Maybe not, but you’ll stay there,” her grandmother replied wisely. “You don’t belong in this world, Nairi, you never did. You belong someplace better... gentler than this Earth and you won’t come back here. You shouldn’t.”

“Gentler?” Nairi scoffed. “I’m going there to fight a war , last I checked.”

Isobel shrugged, as if the violence hardly mattered. “Maybe it is not, but he is.”

Nairi’s eyebrows made a sudden, desperate attempt to escape into her hairline. “Excuse me?”

Isobel flapped her hands irritatedly. “Stop commenting and listen. I may be old but that does not make me stupid. He cares about you.” She held out a slightly bent finger in warning as Nairi’s mouth immediately opened.  _ Yeah, right. More like cares that I can stay alive long enough to be useful.  _

“Let people care about you, Nairi. You deserve that,” Isobel said firmly. “But if that so-called King ever hurts you, shove one of his own damn swords up his arse, or I will.”

Nairi let out a started laugh, choosing to ignore the first half of her grandmother’s little speech. 

“Don’t ever be afraid to own who you are,” Isobel went on, into seemingly calmer topics, to Nairi’s immense relief. “You are worthy of as much love as anyone else. I doubt that you will ever be left truly alone by any of your elven companions, but remember than you never will be in any case. Your father and your brother will always be with you, as will I. You are stronger than you think, and you deserve to be happy. Do you understand me?”

Still mute, and with emotions she couldn’t fully discern threatening to choke her, Nairi nodded once.

“Good. And when you get to middle-Earth,” Isobel went on calmly, “I suggest you find one of their healers. An IUD is probably out of the question, but some kind of birth control is always--”

“Christ, Nan!” Nairi bellowed out, leaping up from the bed.

“--available even without advanced technology--”

“I won’t fucking need it!” Nairi yelped rather desperately, yanking open the door to the hallway. “Thanks much, Nan, I’m just going to--”

“Nairi,” Isobel said again, smiling softly.

Resigned, the younger woman turned. “Yes?”

“I love you,” her grandmother said simply.

Nairi’s vision blurred, and she blinked impatiently. “Yeah,” she said roughly. “Yeah, uh, you too.”  _ I love you _ was a foreign concept, and the words stuck in her throat, unspoken, but Isobel seemed to understand. She nodded once, still with a gentle smile on her lips, and then her grin turned wicked.

“Good. Go find your elves.” And then, as Nairi started back down the hall, she called after her, “No unexpected great grandchildren!”

Nairi swore with her usual color in response, and grit her teeth against Isobel’s raucous laughter. As she turned into the living room, she was met with Legolas’s inquisitive blue-eyed stare, and immediately crossed her arms. “Do not ask.”

He tilted his head with a curious expression on his face, but seemed to accept her lack of explanation. “Gather what you need,” Legolas instructed quietly, mindful of the conversation his father was still having with Tauriel a few feet away. “Nothing more than what you can carry in one pack.”

Nairi nodded shortly, adopting the brisk, businesslike attitude of her companions as best she could, and retreated once more down the hallway to obey. She must have crossed the house a dozen times this morning, but now wasn’t the time to comment, if Thranduil’s expression of barely contained impatience was anything to judge by.

She had dozens of half-formed questions flitting around in her head as she threw a small duffel onto the couch that had been serving as her bed. In some small way, it felt like a callback to her multivariable calculus days, when she couldn’t even grasp what she was missing well enough to form a question. But the worst thing that ever happened to her in a high school maths class was a poor exam grade.

She was packing a bag to cross worlds and commit to fighting a war for a kingdom she didn’t yet know, and she couldn’t even explain why. Nairi grimaced and set her handgun in the duffel in between a spare shirt and pants. She’d rather take a calculus exam.

A cold, nervous weight had settled in her stomach by the time she shouldered the bag, sucking in a breath when she thoughtlessly jarred her injury, and she couldn’t shake the sense that she was forgetting something. In the doorway, Nairi turned and raked her eyes over the room once more, looking for anything she’d missed. It wasn’t like she’d had time to accumulate possessions; she’d been staying in her grandmother’s living room. It wasn’t like there was anything she even could take if she had it. Legolas had been clear about the limitations of her carry-on. She had everything she needed. But at the same time, it was like she was leaving everything. And in a way, she was. She had no guarantee that she’d ever come back here. And even if she did, everything would be different.

_ Well, here goes nothing _ , she thought grimly, and walked out of the room without a backward glance.

The kitchen was empty when she re-entered it, and she could see the elves standing outside through the corner of the window. For a moment, as she made her way to the front door, all she could see in her mind’s eye was Dixie, the hard, tough lady nodding her approval like she’d done so many times in life.  _ God, I hope this goes better than crystal meth. _

On the porch steps, though, Nairi couldn’t help but stop and stare, uncertainty coiling in her belly. “What the  _ fuck _ ,” she whispered aloud, blinking rapidly and biting her lip. This was so not what she had signed up for.

At first glance, it looked like Tauriel had set up a full-length oval mirror in the yard. The silver surface was reflecting sunlight directly into her sightline, and Nairi squinted, shielding her tearing eyes with one arm. Her vision cleared, and it was immediately obvious that what she was looking at was not of this realm. 

The surface was faintly silvery and shimmering like a desert mirage, an oval shape hovering a few centimeters above the grass. Slowly walking toward them, Nairi looked expectantly for a stand of some kind, something that would hold it up. There didn’t appear to be one, and she swallowed her apprehension. This was just unnatural.

The elves were gathered to one side of it, talking quietly amongst themselves and glancing occasionally toward the house, waiting. As soon as Thranduil noticed that she’d come outside, he turned and gave a nod to Tauriel. Then, to Nairi’s utter shock, the woman slung her bow onto her back and took several steps backward before running straight at the silver barrier.

Nairi opened her mouth to cry out a warning, but closed it again immediately, feeling foolish. What was she going to say?  _ Watch out, big shiny magic thing! _ Tauriel wasn’t blind, and Thranduil wasn’t stupid. An ass, to be sure, but not a stupid one. They knew what they were doing. It was only she that didn’t.

Tauriel didn’t slow her pace while Nairi watched, bounding gracefully through the silver apparition like she was trying to catch the fucking Hogwarts Express. Nairi half expected her to bounce off, or for her boots to appear on the ground of the other side, but neither happened. She was well and truly gone, somehow, melted into the oval veil.

Thranduil jerked his head again in a silent command and Legolas followed her, stepping calmly into it and, again, vanishing. Nairi wasn’t entirely sure she was still breathing. There was a difference between accepting that she could do things with her hands and seeing something so violently magical right before her eyes.

“After you,” the Elvenking inclined his head.

Nairi found herself shaking her head rapidly, trying to ignore the fear clenching in her belly. “Get on with it,” she said brashly. “Shouldn’t the king go first?”

He arched a thick brow elegantly, stepping toward her. “Are you certain you wouldn’t run?”

She would, and they both knew it.

Thranduil shook his head dismissively. “You would get lost.”

A fresh bolt of apprehension darted through her. “Lost?” she found herself echoing.

The Elvenking gestured behind him. “This gate will take you anywhere, but it must be directed by the traveler. You do not know where you mean to land. Someone must go before you and behind you to hold the path open until you can do this on your own.”

Somehow, knowing that she would travel between the king and his son did not reassure her. “What happens if I get lost anyway? I get stuck in the void?”

“It will not happen.”

“What if it does?” she challenged. “This doesn’t seem particularly safe.”

“Then I will find you,” Thranduil uttered fiercely, leaving no room for her to doubt his word. “Besides, I thought you liked danger,” he pushed.

Nairi rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say there, old man.”

“Trust me?” He phrased it like a question, holding his much larger hand out to her, a patient expression softening his features. Like he was giving her the choice.

She bit her lip. _ Trust me _ . “Okay,” she whispered, and shifted her duffle bag to her other shoulder before reaching out to take his hand.

“Good, here we go.” Thranduil gave her a deadly, wild smile and pulled her toward the veil, nearly yanking her off her feet. She could have sworn he winked. There was no time to think, to prepare herself, and he was about to dislocate her fucking shoulder.

Nairi sucked in a rapid breath, planning to utter some insulting obscenity at him, but she never got the chance. Thranduil swallowed up the remaining distance of the forest floor in two great strides, plunging into the shimmering silver without ever letting go of her.

Instinct took over and she threw up her free hand to shield her face, banging the duffle into her hip as it swung wildly with her movement. He was making her run to keep up with him, to keep her hold on his hand. An involuntary, panicked “Oh god” escaped her as it came closer and closer to her face, and then she was enveloped by the sensation of something cold and shocking. It felt a little like she imagined running through a waterfall might, if it was a waterfall made of some kind of electric, carbonated liquid. It stung her skin lightly and crashed into her gasping open mouth, leaving her breathless and choking. It was like she was being completely taken apart into a million panicking little molecules, and the only thing grounding her was the sensation of her fingers laced through Thranduil’s, dragging her toward something certain and inevitable and safe. Trust me, he’d told her.  _ Trust me. _

It may have lasted hours or merely seconds, but all at once there was something under her feet again and she was stumbling, coughing and gasping dryly with her eyes tightly shut and her hand probably cutting off all circulation to Thranduil’s.

“You son of a bitch! ” she gasped out, trying to wrap her head around the fact that she was completely dry to the touch in spite of feeling like she’d gotten liters of water in her lungs. “Give me some goddamn---warning…” Nairi finally opened her eyes, and her voice trailed off absently.

“Holy  _ shit. _ ” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a thank-you/apology for your patience and the quality of this chapter, I'll be posting the next one tomorrow!


	13. Ignite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Please don't hate me?
> 
> In which Nairi discovers culture shock, jealousy, and a whole new meaning to "hot and bothered".

Nairi was convinced in that moment that she’d found the most beautiful place on Earth. Except this wasn’t Earth. And beautiful didn’t do it justice, but she knew no other name for what she saw.

She dropped Thranduil’s hand as an afterthought, fingers still stiff from the bruising grip she’d had on his, and turned a slow circle with her head tilted up to the canopy of the trees above them. Compared to this, the colors of Scotland’s most idyllic locations seemed washed-out and dull. She could barely catch glimpses of the sky through the thick tree cover, but what she could make out was pure blue and seemed cloudless. The air was clearer, too, every breath a heady rush of oxygen. What that said about the pollution of Earth’s atmosphere, she didn’t want to examine too closely.

Through it all, though, a sense of utter untamed wildness was woven through, shown in the twisted roots and untamed undergrowth. Some of the trees further out looked as though they’d been caught by a string of prankster teens, long strands of white draped through them. 

Nairi glanced back to her companions, and realized with a sudden jolt that they weren’t alone. She counted seven unfamiliar elves coming out of the shadows of the forest, all of them male, each one dressed similarly to Legolas and armed to the teeth. They were all staring in undisguised shock at the woman whose first words had been to insult their King, and the elves directly north and south of her had their bows trained on her body, ready to fire if she made the slightest move wrong. Nairi swallowed nervously, half expecting to see a sniper’s laser on her chest if she looked down.

“My Lord Thranduil.” A tall, dark-haired elf came to stand in front of Thranduil, sparing a suspicious glance at Nairi from the side of his dark eyes.

“Feren,” Thranduil replied with a brusque nod, “I trust you brought Nedhudir?”

The elf blinked rapidly a few times. “No, my Lord,” he said after a pause. “The journey is a short one,”

“But yet less so for a mortal,” Thranduil tossed back with an air of arrogant command.

“My Lord, I apologize.” Feren stammered. “I did not expect for her to be--”

Jesus H. Christ. “ _ She _ is right here, and she can walk,” Nairi cut in. “Why don’t the both’v you shut up already?”

Feren’s dark eyes nearly bulged out of his head, as did those of his other guards. Busy staring at her as they were, no one seemed inclined to speak, so Nairi cut in once more. “Right. Someone start walking in the right direction so we can stop standing around, yeah?”

Covering what looked to be the beginnings of a smile, Tauriel did so, inclining her head to the other elven guards and taking off at a brisk pace through the trees. Nairi moved to follow, nearly tripping over a motionless Thranduil on her way. He made the error look graceful, taking her elbow and guiding her along. He bent slightly, under the pretense of balancing her, and put his lips near her ear. “ _ Quiet _ .” he hissed out. “Try not to make it easier for them to hate you.” There was no trace of warmth or familiarity in his voice, and she tried not to be affronted.

She elbowed his gut in retaliation, enjoying the satisfying little oomph he made. “I have no idea what you mean,” she proclaimed stoutly, sarcasm quirking the edges of her mouth up. “I am both cute and loveable. Obviously.”

Thranduil cleared his throat. “Unfortunately…” He moved away from her before she could catch anything else he muttered under his breath. Then, louder, he spoke again. “When we arrive in my halls, Tauriel will escort you to change and show you the rooms that will be yours.”

Nearer the front of their procession, Tauriel’s red head bobbed in assent.

“You will also need a set of your own weapons. Someone will see to that for you.” And with those last, brisk, words, the Elvenking moved away from her entirely and caught up to his son, leaving Nairi surrounded entirely by Feren’s guards. Though he had spoken English--Westron, Tauriel had once said they called it--she didn’t know if any of the others did, and in any case they weren’t bothering to translate if they could. They chattered away in Sindarin, ignoring her presence except for a few curious stares.  _ Right _ , Nairi mused grimly.  _ First order of business. Find the damn library. _

Feren’s idea of a “short walk” was, in Nairi’s rough estimation, close to an hour. And what an hour it was. The path they were taking was less of a path and more of a natural break in the trees, littered with gnarled roots and a handful of fallen logs. Every elf around her skirted them with light feet or leapt over them all together, while she tripped, stumbled, and climbed her way past the obstacles, branches yanking at her clothes and hair.

“Well this is glamorous,” she muttered, tearing her hair free of yet another low-hanging branch. Her once-white shirt was getting streaked with dirt, and she was fairly certain that there was at least one insect crawling around in her bra. The forest was a pretty one, to be sure, but in that moment, she hated it nonetheless. None of this shit ever happened when she was sitting on her couch.

They rounded one more curve in the trees, and then the guard elf on her left seized her bicep, tugging her to a halt. Panic seized her, adrenaline running through her veins as she tried to break free of his iron grasp. He snapped something in Sindarin, using his free hand to pull a strip of green cloth out of a pocket. It looked disturbingly like a blindfold, and Nairi lost all pretense of cooperation at the sight of it.

Her right hand was free, and she balled it into a fist and swung, connecting hard with the side of his cheek. Her knuckles cracked, and his head snapped back, dark hair flying, but his grip did not yield.

“Get your fucking hands off of me! Don’t you fucking touch me!” she screamed out, trying to find enough balance to kick him. He, like all of the elves, was so much stronger than she, but unlike Tauriel and Thranduil, he wasn’t going to soften his force to what was necessary for a human; her arms were being pulled behind her back with the painful strength it would take to hold a full-grown male elf.

Her screaming was enough to attract attention from the front of the party, just as the guard finally wrestled her around and started to tie the cloth over her eyes. Nairi saw red.

Her head snapped back to hit him hard in the throat, and she felt him release her suddenly, breathing as hard as she was. She tore at the blindfold in a panic, her heart rate increasing when the knot refused to yield. Someone else’s hands were on her shoulders, squeezing her gently and saying her name.

“Nairi, Nairi, Nairi. Hey,”

Slowly, she stopped struggling, standing still while he pulled the blindfold from her face. “It’s fine. Everything’s okay,” Legolas assured her softly, holding her gaze with his blue eyes. “It was an error. They weren’t meant to do that.”

She still felt shaky, but she managed a sarcastic smile. “Is that your normal practice, then? Blindfold all your guests?”

Legolas’s mouth pinched into a grim line. “Only prisoners.” He glanced over her shoulder, and she turned too, joining the number of gawking elves watching their King lay into the guard. The verbal lashing was all in Sindarin, but for once she didn’t need a translation to know what was being said. Everything she needed to know was clear in his flashing eyes and the gravelly, biting tone in which he spat out each word. Warmth rushed up inside her at his defense, tempering the anxiety still flooding through her veins.

Legolas slid an arm carefully around her shoulders, pulling her away from the center of the conflict. He led her a short distance up the path ahead, pausing when they’d put perhaps ten meters between themselves and the gathered elves and leaning his weight on a tree trunk. “Are you alright?”

Nairi huffed, crossing her arms. Panic was still at the forefront of her emotions, but calmer now, and it was steadily being replaced by the pissed-off embarrassment of letting old fears get the best of her. “Fine,” she said tightly, clearing her throat. She braced her back on the nearest opposite tree, popping one foot up on its bark behind her as well. “I was blindfolded and waterboarded by a street gang mine had made enemies with when I was sixteen,” she told him flatly, to take the question out of his eyes. “I don’t appreciate having my sight taken away.”

Legolas nodded, and the lack of pity in his eyes was an immediate relief. “Prisoners are blindfolded upon their arrival and dismissal of my father’s halls. If they are considered enemies of the King, they cannot be allowed to know how to reach our home. You, however, are not a prisoner.”

“Then why was I wrapped up like one?” Nairi demanded, a hard edge in her tone.

Legolas exhaled a soft sigh, glancing past her back down the sloped path to the rest of their party. “Because you are of the race of Men, Nairi, and they mislike you for it. Because you do not look like the savior they were promised when my father left to fetch you.”

Nairi rolled her eyes. “So nothing new, then? I’ll make them like me eventually.”

Legolas grinned, a bit in relief at the return of her fire, and nodded. “I’ve no doubt you will.”

Nairi made to push herself off of the tree, wincing as bark snagged at her hair. “God, your forest hates me.”

Legolas was quick to shake his head, a fond smile creeping onto the edges of his mouth as he looked around at the trees. “No. Perhaps it does not yet trust you so well as we do, but the trees do not judge as the Eldar do. If you wish, when you are settled, I can take you through it. Teach you to walk among these trees without getting stuck,” Mirth danced in his eyes.

Nairi, ever the child, stuck her tongue out at him. “I’d like that,” she admitted nonetheless.

“Good!” Legolas pronounced solidly. “It will have to wait, though, until Tauriel can find you Elven clothes. You’ll find them much more sturdy.”

Nairi fingered a tear in her shirt, a few centimeters above her hip bone, and shot a wry smile at him. “He really is a King here, isn’t he?” she murmured quietly, almost to herself. And then, lest her interest in Thranduil specifically look too obvious, she went on, “and you a Prince and Tauriel...respected, a warrior. I don’t think I quite realized how many allowances you were making back home...to alienate me less.”

“You are not the first guest in the Mirkwood to be unaware of our ways, and you will certainly not be the last. And you learn quickly.”

Nairi wrinkled her nose up, glancing up automatically at the trees above her. “Mirkwood, huh? No wonder your trees are bloody crabby, if you call them that.”

Legolas shifted his weight, looking almost uncomfortable. “Adar does not approve of the name. In the days of old, this forest was Eryn Lasgalen, the mighty stronghold of the Elvenking. It is not...what it once was.”

“What do you mean?” Nairi wasn’t certain she wanted to know, but morbid fascination had her asking anyway.

“The shadow of darkness fell over it with the rise of Sauron,” Legolas narrated softly. “Foul beasts roam these trees now. Even after the war, it has never quite restored itself to its former glory.” He met her gaze with his blue eyes looking almost guilty. “We should have known it was only a sign of more evil, more magic laced with the darkness.”

“Right,” Nairi said dryly. From the corner of her eye, she noted the rest of the elves beginning to move again, and she pushed herself off of the tree trunk, mentally shoving her tiredness away. “The evil I’m supposed to fight, but you still apparently don’t know what the fuck is going on with it.”

Legolas gave her a tight smile. “Things will be clearer now that we are in the same world, able to receive new information. We may learn more than you wish.”

She scowled at that, falling into the back of the line with him at her side now. “Bollocks,” she dismissed automatically, looking at him with a clear, strong gaze and her chin lifted. For just an instant, she seemed to shake off the mantle of a broken woman entirely. In Legolas’ mind, it was with the bearing of a queen that she said, “The truth may be ugly as sin, but knowledge is power. Ignorance solves absolutely nothing. Learning more than I wish?” she shook her head minutely. “I want to know what I’m fighting.”

Nairi stuck her foot roughly into a hole in a fallen tree trunk to give herself a leg up, stepping up on top of it and then jumping down onto the other side. The impact was just high enough to jar the bones in her feet and ankles a bit, sending tingles up her calves, but it was just daring enough to be fun.

The blindfold incident all but forgotten, she picked her way along at the back of the procession quietly, alone with her thoughts--running around in chaotic circles as per usual--and soaking up the sights of this Elven forest. She was musing on the potential improvements to her surroundings if she had her earbuds and a metal playlist when, glancing briefly to her right, Nairi realized with a start that Legolas was unabashedly staring at her.

“What?” she eyed him curiously. “Something on my face? Bugs in my hair?”

“Mm, probably.” Legolas replied, deadpan. She punched his bicep lightly.

“Jackass! No, seriously, what?”

“I know you do not see it,” he murmured, his expression open and kind. “And I do not speak these words to frighten you. But I think we have been waiting for you for a very long time. Some of us more than others.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Great,” she returned dryly, picking her way through the edges of an overgrown bush. “I’ll try not to fuck up too badly.”

The King’s son flashed her a wide grin in reply, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling a bit, and Nairi realized with a jolt that she was looking at the most obvious, unrestrained, genuine display of emotion she’d seen on any of the elves. And it was kind of bloody incandescent. She found herself wondering suddenly what Thranduil would look like with a brilliant, uninhibited smile on his face, and what she’d have to do to put it there.

She had no idea when exactly she’d started thinking this way about the immortal elf instead of just fantasizing about punching his stupid bloody face, and it was a rather unsettling development. Probably one that should be firmly ignored, boxed up in the back of her mind where all the rest of her fucked up thoughts went to die. Because there was no way in hell she was going to let herself start thinking like this about him of all people. Maybe Isobel was just getting into her head.

Lost as she was in her thoughts, Nairi completely missed her first glimpse of the Elvenking’s halls. Add that to the bloody list of things Thranduil has to answer for. The sound of her rubber-soled combat boots suddenly tapping on flat stone finally jolted her back to the present, and then she did stop to gawk, wrestling her elbow away from Legolas impatiently when he tried to pull her along.

Rising up before her was a great pair of stone doors, crafted beautifully into a wall that curved away from her on both ends, giving a circular impression. Carved pillars supported a small covered area that ran around the entrance as far as she could see, opening in the center onto the bridge they were gathered at. It was imposing and impressive, and, so far as she could see, built straight into the living stone of the mountainside. Yet somehow, Nairi didn’t get the impression she’d find anything inside that spoke of damp rock tunnels.

The heavy doors swung open silently, each nearly a foot thick and yet operated by no force she could visibly identify. Thranduil strode back into his home first, confident and arrogant at the front of their party, while Nairi stayed slinking along in the back, her eyes open in cautious wonder.

The halls inside were surprisingly well lit and natural, all things considered. From the entry she was standing in, everything opened up, a maze of dangerous-looking staircases connecting platforms and open caves and rooms she couldn’t see into. It was huge, and it was beautiful, and it was all so alive--great trees grew up right in the midst of things like pillars, moss covered small areas on the stones, and somewhere she could hear water rushing along.

It fit them, Nairi thought. It made perfect sense that her companions had come out of this place, were ruled by one such as Thranduil from some stone throne that had to be in here somewhere. It was otherworldly and beautiful in context, utterly elven and breathtaking.

“Come on,”

Nairi startled slightly at the sudden, brisk voice beside her, and then Tauriel was ushering her quickly away from the curious gazes of the elves that were beginning to appear, greeting their king and wondering at the thin, messy woman he’d brought back with him.

Tauriel herded her toward a staircase, her face not quite a glare but a much appreciated command to give them space all the same. Nairi, for her part, nearly fell over the railless edge, busy looking around in abject shock as she was. She pinwheeled her arms, rocked up on her toes, and regained her balance gracelessly, a self-deprecating expression on her face and adrenaline making her heart race. “And why are there no railings?” she asked dryly.

Amusement colored Tauriel’s reply. “The Eldar are not nearly so clumsy as humans tend to be, you know.” A tiny shrug of her shoulders. “An architectural choice. I’ve never given a great deal of thought to it.”

Nairi huffed. “Your ‘architectural choice’ is going to be the death of me.”

Tauriel glanced over her shoulder as they finally turned off of the stair and into a safer hallway. “You’ll adjust.” she said confidently.

Nairi snorted disbelievingly, but followed the other woman down the hall and through a door into an elegantly simple set of rooms.

“Yours will be similar,” Tauriel waved her hand briefly to gesture at the space, “on the other side of the halls, I believe. Come.”

She led Nairi through a sort of sitting room and into her bedroom, making her way straight for the closet in the corner. Nairi hovered awkwardly in the doorway, keenly aware of her dirty appearance and feeling incredibly out of place in Tauriel’s private space.

Tauriel, for her part, didn’t seem bothered at all. She reemerged a few moments later with an armful of fabric, throwing Elven clothes in greens and browns and blues onto her bed. Slowly, Nairi came to stand at the foot of it, resting her hands on the looping, carved dark wood frame.

“Any requests?” Tauriel asked her lightly. She was holding what looked like a long skirt in her hands, and Nairi automatically wrinkled her nose up.

“Well, not that.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, I trust your judgement. Some practical shit. I’m apparently supposed to go crawling around the forest with Legolas later.” Nairi rolled her eyes, cursing herself for ever agreeing to that.

Tauriel’s hands stilled briefly, then smoothly resumed folding fabric and discarding items across the bed. “Are you?”

Nairi turned away, peering at a small flat rock lying on the woman’s dresser top. Some sort of runes were carved into it, and she wondered vaguely if it was merely a trinket or if it held some sort of power. “Yeah, he offered.”

Tauriel exhaled a cynical laugh, shook her head and let her hands drop to the bedspread. “Of course he did.” And she suddenly seemed much less like an intimidating, immortal military captain to Nairi.

“Are you guys…” Nairi tried awkwardly, “like a thing, or not?”  _ Great _ , she cursed herself mentally.  _ Really smooth, Nairi. Way to go. Some real first rate female friendship shit, there. _

Tauriel balled up a tunic and threw it at Nairi, who barely managed to catch the flying green material. “No,” she said simply.

“Why don’t you do something about that?” Nairi shook out the tunic, holding it up doubtfully. “You obviously want to,” she pointed out dryly.

“Long story. Try that on,” Tauriel directed briskly.

“I have plenty of time,” Nairi returned, trying to wiggle out of her dirty clothes.

“I made a mistake,” Tauriel said vaguely. “We haven’t...spoken about it.”

Nairi huffed. “That’s really bloody helpful.” She slipped the loose fabric over her head. “How about you just tell him you want to fuck him?”

Tauriel glared. “I liked it better when you didn’t talk to me.”

Nairi’s lips twitched upward into a teasing smirk at that, and she moved to survey herself in a standing oval mirror in one corner. “I look like a green monk in a potato sack,” Nairi informed her flatly.

Tauriel snorted. “That’s because I’m not finished with you yet.” She made quick work of lacing Nairi into a pine-green bodice, corset-esque but unrestrictive, and suddenly she had shape again. “There are leggings and boots, but…” Tauriel trailed off, glancing down at Nairi’s currently-bare toes. “The leggings you can have, but your feet are larger than mine. You’ll have to wear your own shoes for now.”

The effect was only mildly comical in the end, Nairi thought. She was dressed from neck to ankles like an elf, though admittedly in clothing that didn’t quite fit her broader shoulders. At the bottom were her banged-to-hell faux leather black combat boots, made with the clumsy tools of mass production and fully out of place against the fine fabrics Tauriel was lending her. Still, it could have been worse. She could have come through to Middle-earth wearing sparkly hot pink trainers.

Nairi let Tauriel fuss with her hair for a bit, trying her best to fight back the odd sense of discomfort in her belly as she looked at her reflection. It was completely unreasonable, to be so unnerved by this. But it was all going so fucking fast and she looked like one of them now. And god damn it all, she wasn’t an elf. She was barely a woman sometimes. This wasn’t her.  _ But it could be _ , the devil’s advocate in her brain whispered. And maybe that scared her most of all.

“There,” Tauriel pronounced, pulling her fingers out of Nairi’s hair. Simply braided, the entire ensemble rather utilitarian, and unbelievably Elven. “You look beautiful.”

Nairi had an angry red scratch going across her cheek from her own fingernails clawing at the blindfold, black circles painted under her eyes, and a split in her lip she couldn’t even remember getting. “Not the word I’d use,” she snorted back sarcastically, “but you know, thanks, I think.”

Tauriel rolled her eyes skyward, shook her head slightly and just squeezed Nairi’s uninjured arm once. “Go!” she said laughingly. “Find Legolas. I’m sure he is waiting.”

She may have been utter shite at interpersonal relationships, but even Nairi didn’t miss the shadow in Tauriel’s green eyes. “Fine,” she found herself saying, backing up toward the door without looking away from Tauriel. “But I still think you should talk to him. As bluntly as necessary.”

“Get. Out!” Tauriel shot back, but there was a sparkle to her eyes and a laughing curve to her lips that softened the words. Nairi complied anyway, her hands raised in an exaggerated demand for a cease-fire, a smile playing on her own face. And maybe this was what she could have had, years ago, if she’d gone to uni and stayed clean and had a flatmate to tease. But then she wouldn’t have Tauriel, and she wasn’t sure she’d trade that.

She’d been given no instructions on where Legolas might be, or even how to get anywhere within these halls, and Nairi found herself wandering aimlessly, arbitrarily descending the nearest staircase and then taking a path at random across the stone. Her eyes were wide open in wonder at the architecture, the sheer wild beauty of it all, and a voice like Varya’s ran suddenly unbidden through her brain, threatening that they’d get stuck that way.

Nairi’s face fell into a scowl, cursing mostly herself for the stray line of thought, and that was how Legolas found her, storming rather murderously across the flagstones in completely the wrong direction.

“This way,” he called to her bluntly, teasing. He stood in the middle of the hall watching her, his body turned toward the opposite staircase.

Huffing her breath out in a fit of irrational annoyance, Nairi turned on her heel, striding back toward him. “I’m going to need,” she paused, stopping in front of him and lifting her chin. “a goddamn map,”

The elf prince wore the same amused twist to his lips that his father did so often, and Nairi was struck with the sudden desire to smack the smirk off of his face.  _ Deep breath, Nairi _ .

Hours later, she wasn’t feeling any more motivated to love the trees than she had been earlier, though she grudgingly admitted that the Elven clothes were much more resistant to dirt and snags than hers had been. The hairstyles were also surprisingly practical, which she hadn’t expected, but none of that was currently keeping her from putting her ankles in places that they didn’t appreciate.

“Bloody--” her words were cut off with a squawk as she turned her ankle for the millionth time, the full weight of her body coming down on the side of her twisted foot. Nairi sucked in a sharp breath as pain lanced through her ankle, and her hand shot out blindly to brace herself, hitting stone instead of the bark of trees for once.

Legolas’ head snapped back to her in a rush, assessing the scene and leaping gracefully back toward her. “What happened?”

Nairi had her head cocked to the side, staring up at the stone face she’d missed initially. Half-hidden by vine and ivy, age-worn and nearly forgotten, was the gentle, mourning face of a woman, a veil over her head and hair tumbling over her shoulders. “Who’s she?”

“My mother,” Legolas returned solemnly. “There is no grave for her, and no memory. But her family had this placed here many years ago.”

Nairi reached up curiously and pushed a leaf out of the statue’s eye, studying her. “She was...very beautiful,” she said lamely, unsure why the face of a dead woman was putting a catch in her chest.

“I do not remember her,” Legolas ventured after a moment. “My father...will not speak of her. She died when I was very young, but I’m told she was kind, and Adar loved her very much.”

Nairi glanced over at him with a nod, not so much a reassurance but a gesture of confirmation. “He did,” she agreed quietly.

She completely missed the startled look Legolas threw her way in return, throwing a cautious glance instead down to her still-throbbing ankle. Definitely sprained. She knew the drill; keep the boots laced a while longer and elevate it when she got back, which she was more than ready for.

Nairi turned away from the statue with her teeth gritted and her face set to avoid wincing each time she landed on the damned right foot. Legolas followed her, thankfully, but he was still talking. Damn it.

“My father’s counselors wanted him to marry again, after my mother,” he continued, oblivious to both her physical pain and her unfounded irritation with his narrative. “He refused. She was the only woman he ever loved. That’s the thing about the Eldar--elves, you know. We only really love once, our whole lives. My parents’ marriage was a political thing, so they just assumed...”

All Nairi really knew was that her ankle bloody hurt, and she wasn’t nearly as hungry as she’d been a few minutes ago, and she very badly wanted to stop talking about bloody Thranduil and his dead wife.

“So,” she said, aiming for lightness. “On a completely different subject, have you told Tauriel how you feel about her?” She’d decided that her companions’ relationship would be a worthy little side project. 

Legolas made a vaguely strange noise in the back of his throat, but, to his credit, barely reacted otherwise. “Tauriel is… a Captain here, and a good friend. I respect her greatly, of course.”

“Of course,” Nairi returned with a slight smirk. “Bloody useless, the lot of you elves.” Her eyes rolled skyward, then her ankle followed suit and she landed, cursing, on one knee. “Bollocks!”

That did draw Legolas’s attention to her injury, and, despite her vocal and frequent protesting, insisted on carrying her back to the halls. He had her slung up in his arms like a bride, and Nairi huffed once, then fixed him with a saccharine smile. “If you do not,” she grinned, “put me down right now, so help me Jesus H Christ I will sing stupid songs off key in your little pointed ears the whole way.”

“Compromise,” Legolas returned easily. “I’ll carry you on my back.”

Getting a piggyback ride from an elf was, as it turned out, only a little terrifying. Nairi logically knew how surefooted he was, but that didn’t stop her heart from jumping every time he put a foot somewhere less than stable. Gradually, though, she loosened her fingers from their death grip around his neck, and by the time they did make it back to the Elvenking’s halls, she was laughing uproariously with her hands in the air, the pain in her foot utterly forgotten. Eri’s face was a demon less easily banished, but that was a problem for another day. Preferably after she’d found some ice.

Her brain was unhelpfully conjuring up a voice like her grandmother’s to rattle around her skull, muttering about cliches about denial and Egypt. She scowled, reflecting briefly that she really needed to work on that habit of making faces at her thoughts. People already thought she was crazy enough.

Legolas deposited her safely in the suite of rooms she’d been given with minimal fuss, and Nairi threw herself down on the bed without bothering to change her clothes. There would be time later to explore the rooms and ice her ankle; for now, she was bone tired. Was there a time difference in Middle-earth? In any case, jet lag seemed to be a reasonable excuse for a mid afternoon nap. Just a short one… Nairi closed her eyes wearily.

* * *

_ The wall was starting to grate on her spine the longer she stayed pressed up against it, but Nairi didn’t have the breath to complain. Seeking desperately for something to hold onto, her hands moved from his shoulders to tangle in fistfuls of his hair, tugging gently and earning a groan in response amid his onslaught of kisses against her neck. _

_ One of his hands moved from her waist to cup her breast, covered only by the thin cotton of her bra, and Nairi arched into his touch with a moan in her throat. She threw her head back, hitting the stone of the wall with enough of an audible noise to make both of them laugh a little. _

_ He captured her lips again in a bruising kiss, his hand sliding under the fabric of her bra to circle and tease her nipple, sending a bolt of pleasure straight through her. Grinding down involuntarily against the thigh he had wedged between both of hers, Nairi let her head fall back once more, tightening her grip on his hair. “Please,” she whispered, sounding nothing at all like herself and not finding the brain capacity to be worried about it. _

_ Instead of complying with her largely unspoken demands, he drew back, studying her with a suddenly confused expression in his lust-blown blue eyes. “You’re not Eri,” he said suddenly, coldly, and Nairi felt his hands let her go. _

_ And she was cold, and falling, and he was gone, and she was alone. Again. _

Nairi jolted into wakefulness with a quiet gasp, her heart racing in protest. _You’re not Eri_. His voice was still ringing in her ears when she opened her eyes, face burning in embarrassment. “Jesus H Christ on a fucking tricycle,” Nairi spat out, cheeks flaming. She turned onto her stomach on the bed wearily, still in her clothes, and stuffed her face into the duvet. And god, it wasn’t just her face that was on fire.

It was gradual at first, tempered by embarrassment she wasn’t really used to feeling, but soon all she could focus on was how bloody hot she was. She sat up, ignoring her tangled bedhead hair, and shook her head to clear it. The boots went first, heedless of her still swollen ankle, and then she shucked off the socks too. She threw the corset-like garment on the ground, stripped down to the green monk tunic.

She could feel a sheen of sweat breaking out on her forehead, dampening the hair at her neck and running down her back. Still limping, she shuffled to the bag that someone had put in her room and rifled through it, pulling out the tiny bundle of sleep clothes she’d stuffed inside. Pajama shorts and a tank top, the minimal clothes for decency. They didn’t make a damn bit of difference, and the heat boiling under her skin was driving Nairi to distraction.

Her eyes landed on the shape of a water pitcher in the dark, and she braced her hand on the bed frame, hauled her less than cooperative foot over to the vanity, poured a stream of water into the porcelain bowl. Nairi splashed her hands in, cupped water to her face and threw it over her skin, almost swearing she could hear a hiss of steam. Fucking _hell_. She reached for the pitcher again, hands suddenly shaking like drug withdrawal all over again, and the glass shattered at her bare feet.

Cursing, Nairi leapt backward, her entire body trembling and sweating and the water hitting her feet burning like hot coals. “What the fuck,” she whispered rhetorically, pulse beginning to race.

She knew something was wrong. Knew it in the strange sense that people described right before a heart attack, or aneurysm. She couldn’t say why, couldn’t focus. If someone had tried to stop her, she might not have even known her own name. But she had to get out, had to follow some baser urge straight to the bottom of the nearest lake.

Nairi was barefoot and stumbling on one melon-sized ankle, but it was hardly the first time she’d done that. The shaking was harder. Her whole body was vibrating like some sick, torturous combination of her worst panic attacks and meth withdrawal, and her blood was fire in her veins.

No one stopped her on the way out, and if she’d been in full control of her mental faculties, she might have thought it was odd. Then again, if she’d been in full control, she might have noticed the disconcerting trail in her wake, and that was off-putting enough to clear nearly anyone out of her way.

Nairi stumbled outside with her pulse racing and possibly skipping beats in her chest, and she went down on her knees in the middle of what looked like some kind of garden. She was going to pass out. She was going to die. Her heart was going to explode. Or possibly not, given the lack of inexplicable burnt toast scent. Or was that for strokes?

That line of thinking was cut off rather suddenly as alarm took over, because something else was burning. She was choking on some very much not hallucinated smoke, eyes stinging and throat protesting, and a wave of dizziness rocked her. She laid unceremoniously back on the grass, coughing weakly.  _ So this is how I die _ , Nairi thought idly, panic tempered by a wave of numb exhaustion. She was spinning away on a crushing tide of impenetrable black, her eyes closing in spite of herself.

And she had always maintained that passing out was disconcerting, no matter how many times she’d done it. Still, absolutely nothing was as alarming as waking up in the dead of night, outside in a patch of burnt grass, screaming, stark naked, and on fire. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry?


	14. Thranduil: I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So...never let me try to write from Thranduil's POV again. His brain is an absolute monster to get inside so blame him for the delay! This will be a double update since the two chapters go together, so hopefully that makes up for it a little?
> 
> In which Nairi is on fire and Thranduil definitely doesn't have a single feeling about it.

Thranduil dismissed his valet with a wave, making a mental note to have a word later with the young ellon about hovering. He was perfectly capable of undressing himself. Still, the startled look in the man’s eyes as he retreated reminded Thranduil yet again that he’d returned to a place of tradition and protocols and actions  _ befitting his role _ . He was already a ruler with whispers attached to his name whether he’d intended them or not; no need to go blatantly disregarding any more expectations just because he’d gotten alarmingly used to dressing himself in Nairi’s little cracked-tile bathroom. 

He’d just finished discarding the heavy material of his outer robe when the shouting started. 

He was barely through the doorway of his dressing room when the poor valet came fumbling back in, overwhelmed and breathless. “My lord,” he dropped his head hastily. “Captain Tauriel needs you. Now.”

Thranduil’s eyes flicked over his face, deeming the panic in the young ellon’s eyes enough to justify speaking as they walked. He made his way rapidly to the door of his suite, thankful he’d left his boots on. “And what is it that she cannot handle herself?”

Vanir’s face flickered with uncertainty. “The Captain is in your gardens with the--with the human, my Lord.” He paused, hesitating, struggling to keep up as the Elvenking’s long strides ate up the hallway. 

“And?” Thranduil pressed icily. He wouldn’t stand for information held back.  _ Nairi.  _ It seemed every time he turned his back on her, she was at the center of some new bit of trouble. 

“Daeron said she was...was burning, my Lord.”

“Daeron likes to exaggerate,” Thranduil countered swiftly, ignoring the catch of worry he felt at those words. She had mentioned fire before, and his garden--Eri’s garden--was hardly the lake he’d told her to practice in. Biting back a curse, he lengthened his strides, not bothering to tell Vanir to keep up. He’d be along eventually, and anyway he was hardly vital to the situation. 

Thranduil’s stomach sank as he descended the stairs into the entry hall, his boots neatly covering the set of tiny, delicate, charred-black footprints running across his stone floors. Following Nairi’s ominous bare footsteps outside, he rounded the stone wall into the gardens just in time to hear her piercing, tortured scream. 

In spite of himself, Thranduil stood still, his eyes widening as he took in the scene. Tauriel was fiercely berating one of his guards, gesturing to what appeared to be an empty bucket of water in his hands. And on the ground in front of them was a figure that had to be Nairi, crumpled limply in a circle of burnt earth with smoke still rising from the plants nearby. She’d clearly burnt through whatever clothing she was wearing, the flames still licking over the length of her body serving as the only modesty she had. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before in six thousand years, and she was a marvel with powers they’d never considered, and  _ she was dying _ . 

Her head moved restlessly, wreathed in fire like some ethereal foreign goddess, as he brushed past, looking to Tauriel. “What happened?”  _ Focus _ . 

Tauriel shook her head, distressed. “Daeron found her like this. And no, water does not help.” She cut another glare at the chastened guard. “Evaporated before it touched her. She screamed like the steam burned her, but I don’t think the fire is.”

Thranduil turned away from her, processing the words distantly as he crouched with one knee in the dirt in front of the tiny flaming thing, repressing the urge to roll his eyes.  _ Valar above, woman.  _

“Nairi,” he said softly instead. “Can you control it?” He found her eyes with some difficulty through the light she was giving off, meeting deep pools delirious with panic and pain. “Nairi, listen to me,”

Her entire body was shaking, and he watched a familiar expression of anger cross her face. “You’re...not...bloody  _ helping, _ ” she grit out hoarsely, and he bit back a sharp reply. Of course he wasn't. He never was. 

The flames were smaller now, though he doubted that was intentional and more a byproduct of exhaustion. She was getting weaker. There wasn’t time for her stubbornness, wasn’t time to worry about what she meant. 

Thranduil unceremoniously stripped himself of the thinner tunic and shirt he was still wearing, throwing the cloth over her body and following it down with his hands to smother the now-dying flames, resolutely ignoring the searing waves of heat on his face.

“You might have tried that,” he said dryly, knowing his rapt audience of two was watching without having to look. 

Without flames to conceal her, what was visible of Nairi’s bare skin was flushed red and glistening with sweat. Her chest was heaving with alarmingly irregular breaths, her entire body visibly trembling. Her eyes were unfocused as she tried looking up at him, a wry expression mingling with the pain. “Okay,” she whispered. “It hurts now.” And with that, her eyes rolled up into her head and her body went entirely limp. 

Thranduil’s fingers went to her wrist, hunting for a pulse and reflexively dropping her hand. She may not have been covered in flames now, but her skin felt like metal fresh from the forge. “She’s going to burn herself up,” he said quietly. 

“Cold bath?” Tauriel ventured, and he bit back a scathing retort about how well putting cold water on Nairi had worked so far. 

“Warm first.” He had no damn idea if that would work any better, but they couldn’t keep standing around her and he vaguely remembered Detheliel snapping at him that cooler water at first was better than hot for ice sickness. He could only pray it worked the other way around. 

Thranduil adjusted the slightly-singed white fabric over her body as best he could, then slid his hand under her neck, wincing at the feel of the burnt edges of her hair crumbling in his fingertips. 

“My lord, she’ll burn you--” Tauriel started. 

Not bothering to acknowledge her, he swept Nairi up off the ground, refusing to flinch as her burning, impossibly fevered skin came into contact with his bare chest. She felt like trying to hold onto an iron straight from a dwarven smith’s forge. “Really?” he couldn’t resist throwing out as he turned, gritting his teeth as he fought back a wave of remembered panic at the sensation. “I wonder what that would feel like.”

That meant nothing to Vanir and the guards, of course, but Tauriel was privy to his best kept secret, and made a vaguely strangled noise. “You’ve been spending too much time with her!” he heard her call after him as he headed back into the halls. 

Thranduil swallowed the vaguely hysterical laughter that was caught in his chest for entirely no reason.  _ Focus. _ “Start a cold bath in the healing rooms and wake Detheliel,” he snapped at Vanir instead, turning to angle Nairi’s limp bare feet through a doorway. 

There were natural hot springs under the halls, empty at this time of night and warm enough to hopefully begin to regulate her body without shocking it. Still fully dressed from the waist down, Thranduil eased down the stone cut steps into the pool, watching her face carefully as he let first her toes slip in, then her calves. Nairi didn’t flinch, nor did she react at all. Her breathing was still too weak for comfort, her entire body reminding him of a discarded elfling’s doll. 

He let her sink into the water up to her neck, his hands around her ribs clinically to keep her from slipping beneath the surface. For several agonizing minutes he could feel the water’s temperature around him increasing, steam rising thickly from the surface of the pool, before her skin finally began to cool beneath his palms. 

After that, the night consisted of dunking Nairi in a variety of tubs full of water. He’d carried her to the healing rooms and directly into the care of a fussing Detheliel, the no-nonsense lead healer running her hands over Nairi’s flushed face and directing him to set her down in the prepared cool bath. 

When she’d finally stopped altering the temperature of the water around her, everyone in the room breathed easier. When Nairi started shivering normally instead of with fever, Detheliel allowed her to be tucked into a bed under her vigilant watch. In all that time, she hadn’t woken once. 

“It’s to be expected,” Detheliel shrugged, searching his face for an explanation of his lingering unease. “She expended a great deal of energy and her body went through a trauma. She’ll need time.” She extended her hands out to Thranduil, and it took him a moment to register that she was offering him a tunic.  _ Ah.  _ He was still dripping all over her floors. 

After an uncharacteristic pause in which Detheliel’s nose wrinkled in confusion, he took the tunic from her hands. His eyes didn’t leave Nairi’s tiny form in that bed, though, damp and pale and more disconcertingly lifeless than he’d ever seen her. 

The beds in the healing halls were made to accommodate the largest of their warriors; Nairi looked comically tiny in it. She was the same pale, washed-out color as the sheets tucked around her, a little slip of nothing that suddenly seemed so fragile. He’d never really viewed her as such even in her moments of weakness, but now it suddenly struck him that she was so small. A mere mortal girl who’d already lived a hard life. Carrying her had been effortless not because of his greater-than-human strength but because she weighed next to nothing. And yet somehow, she was  _ everything. _

Unaware of his internal turmoil, Detheliel smiled reassuringly. “You needn’t worry, my Lord. She’ll survive to fight for us yet,”

Thranduil blinked. “Of course,” he returned automatically. That was why he’d gone to the trouble of bringing her here in the first place. She had to survive to serve a purpose, nothing more. 

He spun on one heel and stalked out, yanking his head into the tunic as he went, trying and failing miserably to get rid of the unfamiliar, unsettled weight in his chest. 


	15. Spitfire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter is a lot of set-up for later events, so hopefully it's not too boring?
> 
> In which our pair of fools acts like a pair of uncommunicative fools.

Nairi slept for four days without waking, her body too exhausted even to move as she usually did in her sleep. Detheliel kept a vigilant watch over her, slipping water into her mouth periodically and checking that her skin remained cool. 

When she finally did come back to life it was slow, her body fighting the return to consciousness. She dragged herself up from the depths with an audible groan, wincing as the responding sounds of motion sent a bolt of pain through her head.  _ Oh, bloody, bloody hell.  _ Prying her eyes open revealed vision that was blurred like she was underwater, and she blinked slowly until Thranduil came into focus, leaning on the wall across from her bed with his arms crossed. He was dressed more resplendently than she’d ever seen him, in formal robes with an ornate circlet on his head, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of this image of a King hovering at her sickbed. 

Beside her, a dark haired elvish woman was smiling brightly, and she reached out and laid a hand briefly on Nairi’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

Nairi shifted weakly, every muscle in her body protesting, and forced her parched throat and tongue to form words. “Like I got hit by a lorry. And then it backed up.”

The woman’s expression was puzzled, but she seemed to dismiss it as an expected oddity from the foreign human. “Don’t even think about moving yet,” she said firmly instead, as if she was reading Nairi’s thoughts. “You’re to stay still until I get you some food, at least.”

Nairi felt vaguely nauseous, but chose to ignore the woman as she bustled out of the room. 

“Thank you, Detheliel,” Thranduil said for her, before gracefully pushing off the wall and taking a few steps toward her. “I believe I told you to practice in a lake.”

Nairi scoffed, rolling her eyes and then wincing at the pain even that much movement caused. “Don’t worry, won’t be trying that again,”

Something in his expression shifted, and he came to stand at the side of her bed, towering over her in such a way that Nairi felt thoroughly helpless, incapacitated as she was. “Are you in pain?” he asked, reaching for a silver water pitcher on the nearby table.

“Oh I don’t know,” Nairi bit out, withholding another moan as she forced herself to sit upright, her abdominal muscles aching fiercely. “What do you think?”

Thranduil sighed, handing her a goblet filled with water without a reply.

“You could have given me wine,” she said dryly, looking up at him with annoyance. “It would have been the polite thing, given that-- _ fuck _ \--this is all your fault anyway,”

He arched one eyebrow arrogantly. “ _ My  _ fault? I believe it was you who set yourself alight, Nairi, and  _ my  _ floors and garden which took the brunt of the damage. How is any of that my fault?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Nairi grunted instead, crossing her arms and looking away from him. She had absolutely no desire to ever let him know exactly what effect he apparently had on her ability to regulate her body temperature, and frankly the whole thing was something she could do with forgetting. It was all just bollocks anyway.

A soft gasp signaled the return of Detheliel, who was looking thoroughly scandalized in the doorway, holding onto a tray of food. She crossed the room to Nairi’s bed with a shake of her head, setting the tray over Nairi’s legs and fixing her with a disapproving look. “You should not speak to the King that way,”

To Nairi’s and Detheliel’s equal surprise, Thranduil let out a snort. “Lady Detheliel, I suggest not wasting your time there. It’s a lost cause.”

Nairi raised a hand, feeling the burn in her bicep from the motion as she extended her middle finger over Detheliel’s shoulder. “I have had just about enough of you, you know that?”

His eyes glittered with amusement. “Have you, now?”

Lacking another witty reply, Nairi just seized a hunk of bread from Detheliel’s tray and took a ravenous bite, finding that bickering with Thranduil had returned her appetite. 

The healer, for her part, was flicking wide dark eyes between the two, barely paying attention to the draught she was making in her undisguised shock. 

“Drink this,” she directed after a long pause, offering Nairi a cup of brewed herbs. 

Grimacing at the taste, she complied, handing the empty mug back to Detheliel with her tongue out. “Could have warned me it was going to taste like licking an old man’s arse,”

“And do you have a lot of experience there, Nairi?” Thranduil drawled lazily, a wicked smirk playing on his lips.

Nairi growled. “Oh, you bloody  _ wanker! _ ” She cast about helplessly for something to throw, and, finding nothing better, lobbed one of her pillows at him, unbothered when he batted it away easily. Whatever Detheliel had given her was already easing the ache in her body, and she had half a mind to get out of the bed just to hit him.

Thranduil watched her flail for a moment, and then sobered. “We need to talk about what happened to you. And if you’re well enough to threaten me--”

“No we don’t,” Nairi returned automatically. 

“You very nearly died,” he returned, fixing her with a hard stare. 

“Yeah, I’m still a bit fuzzy on that, actually,” Nairi admitted. “What the hell did happen?”

“Detheliel put you in tubs of cold water and took you out before you boiled yourself alive,” Thranduil huffed at her. “You were not in control and it  _ cannot _ happen again.”

Nairi threw her hands up. “That’s what I’ve been bloody saying! How many times have I almost blown everything to bits and you--”

“The wind you create cannot harm you,” Thranduil cut her off impatiently. “This can.”

Her eyes rolled skyward and she made an irritated noise. “I can’t tell if you’re still pissed that you almost lost your war-fighting asset or because I smoked up your grass.”

Thranduil’s eyes flashed, and he slammed his palm down on the wood frame of her bed. When he pulled it back, his skin was a stinging, flushed red. “You are not expendable,” he hissed. “You need to learn to control this and I do not give a damn what you damage in the process but it cannot be you.”

It was wholly intimidating, and almost kind of sweet, even if he did only care because she was supposed to be a living weapon. “Okay,” she muttered impatiently. “Won’t happen again,”

He raised a challenging eyebrow. “ _ What _ won’t happen again?”

She glared at him mutinously and crossed her arms over her chest. “Nothing. And I think I can get out of this bed now,”

He reached out like he was going to stop her, and she cocked her head, her eyes falling to his outstretched hand. "Hang on,"

For a heartbeat, she just stared at the flush of color on his palm, and all she could hear was ringing in her ears. He hadn’t hit the wood frame nearly hard enough for that. No, this was all  _ her  _ doing. 

Nairi let her head thump back against the wall, her face screwed up in pained frustration. "You. Bloody.  _ Eejit _ ," she mumbled finally, opening her eyes to glare at him. Without waiting for a response, she plowed on, throwing back the thin sheets to climb out of bed as she did so. He made no move to stop her, standing silently with the offending hand in a fist. 

"What the hell did you do?" She demanded, glaring fiercely at him. "See me in a ball of fire and immediately stick your goddamned hands in it? Are you  _ stupid _ ?"

The answer, she thought, was unequivocally yes. Yes, he was, and here was one more instance of her power wreaking havoc on someone else. God damn the man. And god damn her bloody flaming body.

She was standing in front of him now, tiny and rumpled with her arms crossed over her body, and something about her seemed to break him from his stunned silence. 

Thranduil’s eyes flashed dangerously, and he took a strangely ungraceful step forward, like his body and brain weren’t in total agreement. Nairi, cursing her shorter stature, was suddenly very aware of the bedside table full of Detheliel’s supplies behind her, leaving her no room to back up if she wanted. 

“If you think,” he growled, “that I would do anything other than reach--” he cut himself off suddenly, and she watched the emotions on his face flicker away into a perfect mask. Somehow that was entirely more terrifying than anything else he was capable of, and she found herself wondering what it would take for him to lose his perfect control, what it would look like. Maybe she didn’t want to be there to find out. 

He swallowed once, his eyes tracking over her form once, and, if possible, his expression closed off further. “Get dressed,” he ordered flatly, a careless dismissal in every syllable. 

Nairi shifted, realizing only then that she’d climbed out of bed to yell at him in only whatever little nightgown-thing they’d put her in, and it hardly qualified as decent. She tugged uselessly on the hem once, then gave up, shaking her head and turning her attention to the rest of the room, looking for something to throw on. It wasn’t like it mattered. Detheliel had disappeared at some point, and it wasn’t like Thranduil gave a damn. 

She was preparing to just take the sheet off the bed and scuttle off to her rooms wrapped up in it when Thranduil paused in the doorway, some of the militant stiffness leaving his body as he turned. 

“Tell Tauriel that you will need a dress.” The non-sequitur was entirely baffling to Nairi, especially considering the vaguely gentler tone it was delivered in, and she blinked at him. “What the fu--”

Something soft and blue cut her off suddenly, and Nairi hissed in annoyance, yanking her head free from a bundle of heavy silk fabric and wincing at the static crackling through her hair. “What the fuck is this?” she blurted, looking between the robe in her hands and Thranduil, still stone-cold but now sans his outermost layer. “God! Why do you always do this?”

“Wear it,” he replied, his tone brooking no argument. He swept out without another word, looking no less regal without the extra robe, and Nairi let out a frustrated noise. 

“Wearing your clothes in the hallway, Thranduil?” she could resist throwing after him. “People will talk!” 

He didn’t reply, probably hadn’t even heard her through the door, and Nairi let out one last ill-tempered huff before caving and sliding her arms through the wide sleeves, drowning her smaller body in a flood of warm blue silk that smelled inexplicably familiar. 

“What the fuck,” Nairi muttered absently, pulling her hair out of the collar. As if summoned by her shocking language, Detheliel chose that moment to reappear from one of the side rooms, stopping short at the sight of Nairi, not only out of bed but wrapped up in a pile of ostentatious silk that was obviously the King’s.

“I don’t know either,” Nairi blurted, cutting off the questions before they ever left the other woman’s lips. She pointed vaguely to the door. “I can go, right?”

Detheliel blinked. “Well, I would prefer--”

Nairi just nodded. “I’m gonna go.” After a few undignified, stumbling steps as she fought not to trip on the unreasonably long robe, she turned, plowing through the tension in the room as only she could. “And why the hell do I need a dress?”

Detheliel’s dark eyes bulged almost comically. “ _ Mereth nuin guliath,” _ she murmured absently. “I would not have expected--that is, it is not--humans do not usually procure invitations.”

Nairi grimaced.  _ A party _ . “Don’t worry,” she said grimly. “I didn’t really get an invitation.”

“But my Lord wanted you to have a dress?”

Nairi shrugged. “He’s an eejit with a brain full of bees. Who the hell knows?” As if to illustrate her point, she gestured down at herself, bundled up in the robe he’d quite literally thrown at her. 

Detheliel seemed to gather herself, ignoring Nairi’s comments in favor of adopting an impassive mask that seemed disturbingly common here. “You should be resting,” she said briskly. “If you wish, you may do so in your own rooms. I will speak to someone about a dress for you.”

Nairi shrugged. “Tauriel can take care of it.”

“Tauriel is Captain of the Guard,” Detheliel failed to completely hide her shocked expression. “She has far more important duties than finding your clothes,”

Nairi arched a brow. “Or, I can just bloody do it myself. Better yet, I’ll skip the damned dress and whatever party this is all about. The lowly human is going to go to her bedroom now.”

She took a comical bow, using the folds of Thranduil’s cape like wings for added effect, and pushed her way out of the room before Detheliel had any chance to respond. Legolas had warned her that her reception would be less than welcoming. Just like every other reception in her life. That didn’t mean she had to like it. 

* * *

She’d had every intention of going to her rooms when she’d left Detheliel. Instead, several wrong turns later, Nairi found herself leaning wearily on the wall in an empty corridor, adjusting the borrowed robe to shield her shoulders from the cold stone. “Damn,” she muttered, glancing back the way she’d come. 

The architecture here was beautiful, and fascinating, and it was all entirely bloody identical. Every staircase opened onto a level that looked exactly like the one below, every hallway twisted through the cavernous space hopelessly until she had no idea where she’d come from. And it was inconveniently empty for supposedly housing an entire kingdom. 

She’d passed no one she could ask for directions even if they could understand her, and she was just about to give up and go to sleep on the floor until someone found her when the door at the end of the hall swung open. 

A rather harried-looking male elf stepped out, formally dressed and with more lines on his face than she’d expected for an immortal being. He stopped short when his eyes landed on her bundled-up form, and Nairi just stared back owlishly. He muttered something in Sindarin, and she made an exasperated sound. 

“I suppose you speaking English would be too much to ask?”

He continued to look at her, his eyes flicking from the top of her head to her bare feet, sticking out from beneath the formal court robe of their King. 

“So can you at least tell me how to get back to my room?” Nairi jerked her thumb down the hallway, sighing when he again remained silent. “No? Jesus Christ.” Evidently the old bastard was going to be of no help at all. Impatience overtaking her, she pushed past him, sticking her tousled head instead straight into the open doorway. “Right, I’ve--”

Twelve pairs of startled elf eyes stared back at her from around a long oval table, and Thranduil’s disapproving blue ones were at the head.  _ Oh, fuck.  _

Immediately, the one to Thranduil’s immediate left spat something out in Sindarin that she figured was less than complimentary. And unlike that first day in the woods, the King made no move to correct him. A voice further down the table tossed something obviously dismissive at her, and she didn’t need a translation to get the meaning: _ get out.  _

“I want to be here about as much as you want me to be here,” Nairi snapped back, her discomfort growing. “But I’m bloody lost, so how about one of you gives me a fucking map instead of yelling at me in a language I can’t fucking understand?”

Thranduil stood abruptly, sweeping to her side in a handful of strides and seizing her elbow. “Nairi. You need to leave,”

“Don’t tell me what I need to do!” Nairi yanked her elbow out of his fingers. “You brought me here, and I still don’t know what’s going on,” she went on in a low voice. “These look like people who know what’s going on.” She wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten from trying to get to her bedroom to trying to get into a closed meeting. All she knew was that she wasn’t about to sit around while everyone kept her in the dark, and she was still so damn irritated with him. 

Thranduil stared at her for a long moment, choosing his words. In the end, though, the decision wasn’t his.

“Tell her to sit down,” a sharp voice ordered, thankfully in Westron, and both of their heads snapped around to meet the piercing grey eyes of an old elf at the far end of the table. 

“Lord Gweldir, she--”

“Sit. Down.” Gweldir’s eyes flashed. “ _ Now. _ ”

"If it is possible for you to be less of a spitfire than usual, now would be the time," Thranduil hissed out. Nairi arched a challenging eyebrow in response, and turned away from him. 

There was an empty seat beside the fierce old elf, and Nairi fought back the anxiety in her chest as she made her way toward it. She had asked for a seat at the table, after all. She just had to hope that she wouldn’t get killed in the process. 

It felt remarkably like being back in court, except this time she was sober. Picking imaginary lint off of the folds of blue silk in her lap, she watched out of the corner of her eye as Thranduil resumed his seat, a look of intense displeasure etched into his face. That alone was enough to convince her that she wanted to be here, and Nairi forced herself to straighten her spine and run a hand through her hair, glancing at each of the elves at the table in turn. 

They all seemed ancient, wise, and remarkably unpleasant, all of them seemingly unbothered once they realized she couldn’t understand their language. The debate resumed around her in rapid Sindarin, moving too quickly for her to keep up even if she had known a handful of words, and it became immediately apparent that none of them were going to make allowances for her. That was fine. She just had to make them respect her. 

Gweldir evidently spoke English--Westron, she reminded herself--even if no one else did. She would just have to hope he wouldn’t bite her head off if she went near him. Bracing herself, Nairi leaned her head in his direction, noting with some satisfaction that he started visibly. 

“Tell them they need to speak one at a time.” She fought to keep her voice steady, striving to sound commanding.  _ Make them respect you.  _

He didn’t even register that he’d heard her. 

“Well I know you’re not bloody deaf,” she hissed. “Listen to me.”

Gweldir turned infinitesimally in her direction, raising an eyebrow. “Spitfire, indeed. Why should I?”

Oh, hell. She wasn’t here for complicated political bargaining. “Because I will find your bed and I will put a whole bloody army of frogs in it. Now tell them,” Nairi repeated evenly, “to speak one at a time. I’ve seen five year olds having a more civilized argument.”

At first, the noise he made had her worrying if she’d killed him. Then, as the table slowly fell silent to stare at him, she realized that he was laughing. Gweldir took a breath, then delivered something in rapid Sindarin that may or may not have been her command. Every head in the room turned to stare at her in varying degrees of incredulity and fury, and at the head of the table, Thranduil was shaking his head at her. 

Nairi arched a brow, propping her chin on her hand as she stared back, daring him to comment. Oh, this could be  _ fun.  _

“Tell me why they’re fighting,” Nairi murmured next, completely unaware that she was relegating the third most powerful man in the kingdom to her personal translator. 

Gweldir, for his part, seemed endlessly amused by her. “The debate is whether to keep you a secret,”

Nairi reared her head back in surprise. “Me? Wait, a secret from what?”

“The other elven kingdoms. Some of them want Lord Thranduil to keep you as a…” he hesitated, searching for the words in Westron. “Last-minute weapon.”

“And what does Thranduil think?” Nairi returned immediately, her eyes returning to the King at the other end of the table. He was still watching her intently, coldly answering questions without losing his focus on her face, and she didn’t know quite what she was supposed to feel. 

Gweldir hesitated, and she leaned a few inches closer to him. “Gweldir,  _ what does Thranduil think _ ?” she gritted out, contemplating whether to let her elbow slip off the table and into his ribs. 

“He has...little interest in informing Lady Galadriel of the affairs of his kingdom.” Gweldir returned carefully. 

“Oh,” Nairi glanced back down the table. “So he really is stupid. Firstly, I am a person, and they should learn to ask me. Secondly, if there’s a bloody war, why is anyone debating lying to the allies? Besides, if Thranduil doesn’t want to talk to Galadriel, whoever she is, then I think I do.”

A sound escaped her unlikely new companion that was something like a hastily aborted snort. “You don’t agree with him?” 

And there it was. They thought she would follow his lead before thinking for herself.  _ Not bloody likely. _ “Well, not blindly,” Nairi rolled her eyes. “Half the time he’s been a complete eejit.”

There was grudging respect in the elf’s eyes. After a pause, Gweldir obediently translated her words into Sindarin, though she was almost positive that he was employing plenty of diplomatic synonyms. The end effect was the same, though, and Nairi felt oddly satisfied as she looked over all of the stunned silent elves. 

They may not truly respect her, but she’d made her point. Leaning once more over to Gweldir, she hissed, “Now where the bloody hell  _ is  _ my room?”

“I would assume,” he returned coolly, “upstairs. Turn right.”

“That’s all from me, then,” she said, louder, and stood rather ungracefully as she pushed the chair back away from the table. “Lovely to meet you, but I need to go see someone about a dress.” 

“Nairi.”

She spun on one bare heel, her face already closed off by the time she met Thranduil’s gaze. Some part of her knew that she didn’t have a real reason to be angry at him, that she was being childish, that it was the safer option, but she ignored all of that. Nairi planted her hands on her hips, although the gesture was largely useless under the miles of fabric she was swimming in.  “What?” she bit out, ignoring the identical curious expressions of a dozen old, nosy elves. 

Thranduil seemed to hesitate for a heartbeat, his eyes searching her face, and then he flicked his wrist dismissively, turning away from her. “Nothing,”

Rolling her eyes, Nairi slammed the door on her way out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Fun fact, a group of frogs is actually referred to as an army!


	16. Feast of Starlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the delay, y'all. This whole quarantine thing really got me off my game. ALSO - some of you that have been following this godforsaken story forever know that the title was inspired by a song of the same name by Bea Miller. I thought it fit Nairi's journey in the beginning of the story and some of the lyrics actually inspired the scene where she first picks up Thranduil's sword in her living room. Today, Kelly Clarkson released another song, also called 'I Dare You' and it perfectly fits Nairi's arc for the next few chapters???? I am unreasonably excited about this and thought I would share. And even if you don't care, still go listen to the songs cause they're a bop. Okay, I'm done now.
> 
> In which Nairi puts on a dress, Thranduil isn't trying very hard to keep his hands to himself, and Nairi gives awkward hugs.

“I have a fantastic idea,” Nairi mumbled sarcastically into her pillow, lying face down and fully prepared to welcome suffocation. “What if I didn’t go to the bloody party?”

There was a noise of controlled frustration from the direction of the expansive wardrobe, accompanied by the clattering of wooden hangers. “Refusing the invitation would be a slight to the King. And since you’ve...introduced yourself to the council,” Tauriel went on dryly, “they will be expecting your presence as well. Besides, the Feast of Starlight is a celebration for all of the Eldar--you should be there,”

Nairi rolled onto her back and crossed her arms snugly over her ribs, staring listlessly up at the stupid canopy curtains on her bed. “I am not an elf,” she returned flatly, “I do not care if Thranduil’s feelings are hurt, and I do not do parties.” Not the elves’ kind, anyway. They wanted her to wear a damned dress and  _ mingle,  _ and she highly doubted there would be club drugs available. It all just sounded like a recipe for disaster.

“And, for the record, I didn’t get an invitation,” she went on, rolling her eyes up into her skull. “I was told to get a dress. Not the same thing.”

Tauriel moved to stand over her at the side of the bed, amusement flashing over her refined Elven face. “No one has claimed it was a particularly articulate invitation. Come on. My orders were to get you ready. Do not make me drag you.”

Nairi huffed, studiously refusing to move. She grit her teeth, staying silent even when Tauriel seized her wrist and tugged. 

“You really must get up. I promise no one expects you to stay for the dancing.”

Nairi glared. “Dancing?” Evidently this entire evening had been devised to torture her. In spite of her misgivings, though, she allowed Tauriel to pull her to her feet while she talked. 

“It is an old tradition. Though, not quite the same since…”

“Since?” Nairi prompted. 

Tauriel looked inexplicably guilty, and quickly shook her head. “Never mind,” she said, cutting off any further protests from Nairi by jamming a length of silk and velvet cloth over her head. 

Her head finally popped out sputtering, dark hair dragged across her face yet again and crackling with static. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Dressing you,” She tugged at the bunched-up fabric around Nairi’s waist until it fell in a gentle curtain to her feet, the flowing sleeves and wide neckline giving her a soft, Elven silhouette. “It should fit well enough for the night.” 

Nairi’s continued protests fell on deaf ears as Tauriel went to work, fastening the laces of the dark green silk with ease and twisting her hair back into a pattern of braids. It occurred to her that this sort of Cinderella treatment was probably the average girl’s fantasy, but Nairi couldn’t get past the anxious crawl of her skin. She had no desire to have everyone looking at her, even if she was cleaned up well enough, and the events of the past week had taught her that all of those inevitable looks would likely be bloody judgemental. 

Oh, her body was fine enough, she supposed, especially now that she no longer looked like a walking skeleton, but everything from her rounded ears and shorter stature to the curves that tugged at Tauriel’s slim-cut dress screamed  _ outsider _ . She looked like exactly what she was--a human playing dress-up in an Elven world she didn’t belong to. No amount of hair and makeup styling was going to change that. 

“Come,” Tauriel’s voice shook her from her reverie. In the mirror, there was a delicate, regal woman that she didn’t remember being turned into. “I’ll walk you down.”

Nairi turned to the woman in alarm, taking in her utilitarian Captain’s clothes. “You’re not coming?” She hadn’t realized how much of her barely-formed plan had involved following Tauriel around until that was no longer going to be an option. 

Tauriel shook her head lightly. “Someone must stay on duty,” She shrugged. “I’ve attended a thousand years of these feasts.”

“So you’re just going to leave me there?” Nairi threw her hands up, listening to the material of the gown rustle with her movement. “I can’t fucking understand anyone.” And the language barrier felt like the least of her problems. 

“You will be fine,” Tauriel pronounced calmly, steering her through the door and down the descending staircase nearby. “No one is going to torture you.” She gestured with one hand to the right-hand side of the hall, which opened onto a courtyard filled with laughter and eerily beautiful Elven music.

“That’s what you think,” Nairi muttered, unconvinced, scuffing the toe of her combat boot against the stone flooring beneath her dress.

“Just… be patient,” Tauriel suggested gently. “It’s been a while.”

It was such an odd parting line that Nairi just stared, not reacting until Tauriel had already turned halfway down the opposite corridor, too far for Nairi to bother shouting after her. “Be patient,” she muttered to herself. “What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?” She had been many things in her life, but patient sure as hell wasn’t one of them. 

Nairi oscillated in the hallway for several more minutes, watching what little she could see of the festivities and trying in vain to convince herself that she wasn’t nervous. Then, with the sound of her every footstep sealing her doom, she forced herself to walk out into the courtyard, if only because she knew someone was eventually going to notice her and drag her the rest of the way if she didn’t do it herself.

The courtyard was filled with unfamiliar elves, all in varying states of finery. Some of the women were in extravagant dresses, jeweled adornments dripping from their hair, while others wore simpler costumes that seemed inspired by the wood around them. There were hundreds of overlapping Sindarin conversations, rolling over her like a wave as the words she couldn’t understand blurred together, quietly ethereal music playing the background track to her discomfort.

Every single one of them fell silent when she walked in. The hush spread to the edges of the gathering slowly, until every elf in the courtyard was turning to get a look at the human girl their king had brought back. Nairi’s footsteps stuttered on the flagstones, her heart running away on a rush of adrenaline in her chest, and for a moment that felt like eternity, she froze completely. 

Then, drawing on a false bravado she didn’t really feel, she forced herself to walk through them, the sound of her boots ringing heavy across the silent space. It was fine. They didn’t matter, she didn’t care what they thought. She didn’t care what  _ anybody  _ thought.

Nairi knew deep down that if that statement had ever been true, it certainly wasn’t anymore. Nevertheless, that thought was sent quickly into the back of her brain with all of the other banished traitorous ones, and she made a point of ignoring it. 

Abandoning her attempt to look natural, she made for the nearest clump of shadows, hiding partially under the overhang of a balcony above, concealing herself from the heart of the revelry. She could see tables piled high with food, dancers whirling around on the grass, an admittedly beautiful tapestry of stars above them. So many things to catch someone’s interest, and yet, even in the corner, she was apparently still the most interesting thing in the space. 

Nairi snorted inwardly, thinking of what all of these richly dressed, important looking elf women would think if she told them what she was really like. What she’d done, the way she lived. She scratched at the dirt under her fingernails nervously, leaning back on the wall behind her, entirely inadequate by comparison and painfully aware of it.

Their eerily beautiful Elven instruments began to play again, and she watched these foreign faces dancing and laughing elegantly like Varya’s high society friends. It was a blur of colors and language and movement she didn’t understand, so she gave up and focused instead on the glasses in their hands.  _ Wine. _ She may as well just get drunk; she was good at that if nothing else. Maybe she could even use it as an excuse to leave early.

Nairi pushed herself slowly off the wall and began to squeeze uncomfortably through the mingling crowd, grateful that their attention had seemingly been drawn by something else. She didn’t bother trying to find out what else was so distracting, and frankly she just didn’t care. 

At the end of one of the seemingly-endless feast tables, there was a crystal decanter and a platter set with empty wine glasses. Nairi’s fingertips closed on the cool crystal, even as a warm hand seized her wrist. She jerked her hand back with a little yelp, narrowly avoiding knocking over the entire setup, and, with her hand still held hostage, twisted around to get a look at her captor. 

“What in the fucking--”

Thranduil refused to let go of her wrist, his lips twitching as he looked down at her. “Elven-made wine is stronger than you think, Nairi.”

“I can handle myself,” she retorted, ignoring further pointed looks from elves that had clearly not appreciated her coarse outburst.

“Nevertheless,” Thranduil said smoothly, and he slipped his free arm around her waist and half-dragged her away from the alcohol. “Are you enjoying the feast?”

Nairi pinched her lip, impatiently wiggling her wrist in his grip like a fish on a hook. “Let go of me, you arse! No, I’m sure it’s just bloody lovely but everyone’s looking at me like a piece’v meat, so--” 

As if to illustrate her point, every curious eye in the room had come back to her again, watching her with something like shock as she helplessly followed Thranduil across the courtyard, still trying halfheartedly to get out of his grasp. 

“They’re looking at me, not you,” he murmured calmly, as if sensing her rising discomfort.

“‘Oh, I’m Thranduil’,” she mocked relentlessly, lowering her voice into an intentionally terrible imitation of his. “‘I’m a king and I’ve got an ego the size’v the goddamn sun!’ Look, I’m sure they are but--”

He turned her to face him, releasing her wrist to take her other hand instead and then, with a gentle push, sent her spinning out toward the crowd and then pulled her back within his reach, using his arms to guide her into a clumsy sort of spin. She stumbled, cheeks heating up and one hand bracing on his chest to steady herself. 

“No, Nairi, they’re staring at me because I don’t dance.”

“You bastard,” she hissed out. “ _ I _ don’t dance,”

“You do now,” he returned, and for a moment Nairi was struck by a sudden blinding urge to give him a solid boot up the arse. 

“Thranduil, I swear--”

“Just follow my lead,” he reassured her softly, and before she had any time to protest, they were in the middle of dozens of other dancers, and she had to move, or risk getting them both trampled. The music was unrestrained, as were the elves, spinning around with one another and looking for all the world like a celebrating wood-sprite stereotype. 

She thought briefly about escaping, but Nairi felt Thranduil’s hand land on her hip and sighed, giving in. “If I get us both killed, it’s your fault,” she hissed at him through a painted-on smile. She was really becoming disturbingly good at those. 

He didn’t respond, instead arranging her arms to match him, and spinning with her out to the center of the floor. If the dance had any rules or any pattern, she couldn’t find them, tripping over herself again and again when she failed to predict the next move. She hissed at him again, warningly, and he responded by tipping her backward in his arms, the smile telling her he was enjoying her flailing all too much. 

“I hate you,” Nairi ventured conversationally when he righted her again, leading them in another set of steps. 

“Don’t think about it,” he tilted his head in the direction of the musicians. “Feel it,”

“Well if you hadn’t noticed,” Nairi stumbled against him, trying to stay upright, “that’s not exactly my strong suit.”

Thranduil returned with another wicked smile, and a gasp of shock tore from Nairi’s lips as he shifted his hands to suddenly hold her waist securely. “Don’t you fucking--” 

He lifted her up in the air, holding her above him effortlessly and twirling her, dress fanning out around her, before smoothly bringing her back to earth. “--dare,” Nairi finished lamely, glaring at him without any real venom. 

Thranduil continued leading her around the courtyard while she halfheartedly followed, sputtering angrily all the while. “I don’t dance, damn it, and I am not going to sit here making a fool of myself, do you have any idea what I look like?”

To her complete and utter shock, he laughed. It was a deep, rich sound she’d never heard before, and contagious enough that Nairi bit her lip to hold back a smile in spite of herself. “What?” she asked defensively. “I’m dead bloody serious!”

“Oh, Nairi,” Thranduil murmured softly, locking those blue eyes on her with a depth of emotion she didn’t know how to read. Or didn’t want to. “Spin,” he instructed quietly, and Nairi rolled her eyes, but complied. It was easier than it had been, and she whirled out from his arms with more grace than in her previous attempts, holding her arms out and letting it take her. Damn him, but it was kind of fun. 

She twirled on those soft booted feet back toward him, letting Thranduil catch her and guide her back into the next steps within the circle of his arms. He was still looking at her with that expression on his face, and she swallowed reflexively, suddenly aware of how closely he was holding her. His face was inches away from hers, and it was a goddamn miracle that her feet were still moving. “You have no idea what you look like,  _ silif-elen _ .” he murmured, picking up the conversation like they’d never paused. 

Nairi had no response for that at all, blinking up at him with eyes she was fairly certain looked significantly more dazed and stupid than usual. The song ended, and she realized with a jolt as she looked around that they had been the only ones left dancing, surrounded by chattering elves that were all stealing suspicious glances in their direction.  _ Oh. Damn.  _

Her heart was racing in her chest like a fucking traitor, and for the first time in the whole of her miserable life, she wasn’t flinching away from this. Maybe she should have been afraid, but, then, there had never really been any ‘should’ when it came to Thranduil. 

Around them, most of the elves were moving to one side of the courtyard. Over his shoulder, Nairi vaguely took note of a thin brunette elleth standing on some platform, opening her mouth to sing an enchanting Sindarin melody. 

The fingers of her right hand ran absently over the stitched silver fabric on his shoulder, a cautiously open expression on her face. Thranduil was just watching her, waiting on her, she realized. She opened her mouth with absolutely no idea of what she was going to say, and a scream of pure terror cut her off before she could make a sound. 

Nairi jerked toward the sound reflexively, her hand reaching against skin-tight silk for a weapon that didn’t exist and falling over Thranduil’s instead, still holding her hip. For a moment they both stood frozen in the middle of the courtyard, just trying to see what the hell was going on.

It was the singer who had screamed, hugging herself up on the platform with an expression of sheer terror on her face, looking down at something in the crowd that had gathered to listen. Nairi was already moving toward her, Thranduil keeping up at her side with long strides. 

She looked at him quickly, gathering up the folds of Tauriel’s borrowed skirt in an effort to move faster. “I’ve got her.”

Thranduil looked like he wanted to protest, but nodded shortly instead, splitting off to cut through the crowd while Nairi searched for the quickest way around to the singer girl’s platform. Elves parted for her easily enough, too shocked and shaken to protest, and Nairi fought the morbid curiosity to stop and look at whatever they were all staring at. 

Instead, thankful she’d kept her boots on, Nairi hiked up her skirt and ungracefully got her foot high enough to haul herself onto the metre-high platform. Up close, the elf girl was even younger than she’d originally thought, and seemingly entranced in her shock. 

“Don’t look,” Nairi ordered, projecting her best attempt at a false calm. She jogged up to turn the girl’s shoulders in toward her instead, never mind that  _ she  _ still didn’t know what they were avoiding. “What’s your name?”

“Thaliel,” the girl mumbled. Her tiny shoulders were shaking under Nairi’s hands, and, without warning, she threw her arms around Nairi’s waist, holding on for dear life. 

Nairi stifled a startled noise, one hand coming up to run awkwardly over Thaliel’s dark brown hair, her eyes searching for Thranduil on the courtyard ground below them. That was her first look at the scene, and she winced, trying to keep her own reaction from further upsetting the girl clinging to her. 

Spread out on the stones below, a pretty Elven woman lay with her limbs at odd angles and a dark bloodstain spreading over the front of her blue silk gown. Kneeling beside her, the healer Detheliel’s hands were stained red, and she was shaking her head at Thranduil, her lip pinned between teeth until it turned white. He had a bloody knife in his hands with an unfamiliar black grip, and he looked up to meet Nairi’s gaze with an expression of guilt that felt like a gut punch. 

“Don’t look,” Nairi said again, holding Thaliel’s dark head against her and feeling completely useless. “You’re okay.” She wasn’t, really, but what the hell else was she supposed to say?

She’d done this once before, in an Irish drug den before her last prison stint, holding back a girl that was entirely too young from seeing the aftermath of a particularly grisly stabbing. She’d been somewhere in her twenties; the girl had been fourteen. And she had been laughingly unqualified then and she felt just as unqualified now. Still, as long as Thaliel wasn’t in complete hysterics, she must have been doing something right.

Buried in the shoulder of her dress, Thaliel’s sniffles were slowly quieting, and she released Nairi suddenly, straightening her spine and pushing her hair back. “I--forgive me, Lady Nairi,”

Nairi let out a snort, trying to distract herself from the tidal wave of emotion stuck behind her ribs.  _ Panic-adrenaline-fear-protective-confused _ had to turn into  _ nothing _ , or she was going to become a flaming torch in a windstorm. “Oh, I’m definitely not a lady. And none of that ‘forgive me’ crap. Are you okay?”

Thaliel exhaled shaily, giving a resolute nod. “Yes, Lady--ma’am.”

“Nope, not that either,” She was midway through a laughing eye roll when the shouting started up below them again. Tauriel and a number of other guards had joined the chaos, all of them armed, and Thranduil and one other male elf were hastily removing their embellished outer robes. 

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Nairi muttered, starting toward the edge of the platform as she mentally catalogued what she could possibly do to this dress to make it more practical. God knew she didn’t have much underneath it. 

Thranduil, it seemed, was already reading her mind. He held up one hand bluntly, a smear of blood still on the palm, and shook his head once at her. “No.”

“I haven’t even said anything to you yet,” Nairi shot back, crouching at the edge of the platform so that she was at his eye level. 

“You are not coming with us,” he said with finality. “You have no weapons, you are not dressed--”

“Give me the knife. I’ll cut the skirt. Besides, I thought I  _ was  _ the damn weapon.” Her eyes were daring him to try her. 

Thranduil sighed once. “No, Nairi.”

“Then what did you bring me here for?”

Ice blue eyes flashed at her. “It was not to watch you get killed over a pathetic ambush.”

Nairi huffed, arching an eyebrow at him. “Thank you for the vote of confidence in my survival skills,” she tossed back, the words dripping in sarcasm. “And she was killed in her home, in the middle of a party. Is that your definition of an insignificant, pathetic attack? Thranduil, let me help.”

“You will stay here. That’s an order.”

“Yeah, you’re not my king.” Nairi shook her head in frustration, trying to find any grasp of logic in his insane demands.

Something like hurt flickered over his face, but it was gone before she really knew what she was looking at. “Perhaps not. But I can order them to hold you here.” He tilted his head in reference to the guards standing beside him. 

Nairi slapped her thighs lightly, getting to her feet with a grunt of irritation. Punching his stupid face now was not going to do her any favors, and if she stayed in this argument any longer, she was going to do just that, regardless of consequences.“Fine. Fine, leave me here. Again. I look forward to a detailed explanation of how that’s not strategically fucking stupid later.” Her eyes flashed, challenging him to tell her she was wrong, that there  _ was _ an explanation. 

Thranduil sighed. “Just...look after the girl.”

“I’m not a babysitter!” Nairi hissed lowly at him as she turned away, hoping Thaliel hadn’t heard that particular parting comment. She grabbed Thaliel’s arm perhaps a bit harder than was strictly necessary, guiding her off of the platform at a brisk pace born out of irritation. 

“Where are we going?” Thaliel asked quietly, yanking her skirt up in one hand as she struggled to keep pace with Nairi. 

Nairi glanced at the girl beside her, her eyes flicking over her face as she tried to guess at how old Thaliel would be in human years. In any case, she was tiny and pale and clearly overwhelmed, and Nairi forced herself to relax her hold on the girl’s bicep, shortening her stride as they exited the courtyard and started back up the winding stair inside the halls. “I’m sorry,” she said shortly. “It’s not your fault Thranduil is an arse.”

Thaliel let out a fairly hysterical-sounding giggle, looking up at Nairi with wide eyes. 

“Where’s your room? I’m taking you there,” said Nairi grimly. “And then you will stay there with the door locked, and I will go punch someone.”

Big brown eyes stared at her with an expression of pure shock, and it occurred to Nairi that perhaps she didn’t need to be corrupting some poor Elven child from the first meeting. 

“How old are you, anyway?”

“Forty-seven, La--Nairi,”

Nairi vaguely recalled Legolas trying to explain Elven aging to her on the ferry into Ireland. She hadn’t really bothered listening, but she was fairly certain that equated to just shy of eighteen for a human.  _ Jesus.  _ Somehow the fact that Thaliel was technically older than she was did nothing to lessen the urge to protect the girl, and  _ where the hell had that come from. _

“So,” Nairi prompted. “Bedroom?”

Thaliel looked almost guilty for a moment, glancing at the stone beneath their feet instead of meeting Nairi’s eyes. “I do not live in the halls, ma’am.”

Nairi cocked her head in confusion. “So where the hell do you live, then?”

The girl shrugged, a submissive curl to her shoulders that Nairi didn’t fail to notice. “Some of the Silvan elves live in the wood,”

Nairi blinked. “Well, fuck that.” There were a thousand things she could have said, about safety and space in the halls and what the hell Thranduil thought he was doing, but she just shook her head. “Can’t let you get stabbed too.” She grabbed onto the girl’s wrist again, pulling her up the stairs. “You can stay in my room.”

It probably wasn’t the most empathetic move, but Nairi’s only thought was to get rid of the girl, safely, as quickly as possible. She’d never been particularly comfortable with anything remotely child-like, even if Thaliel was technically almost an adult, and anyway she should never be put in charge of anything with eyes that innocent and huge. 

She pushed Thaliel into her bedroom rather unceremoniously, choosing not to comment when the girl immediately made for the chair in the corner, pulling her knees up to her chest and scrunching down like she thought something was going to hit her.  _ That _ was a topic to be had at a later time. 

“Lock the door when I leave,” Nairi ordered sharply, wiggling around as she fought to undo the laces on the back of Tauriel’s dress. It was a corset-style pattern of green ribbon from her shoulders to her waist, with tiny hooks she couldn’t reach. And she was running out of time. 

“Fuck it,” she muttered, ignoring Thaliel’s small flinch at her words. Nairi grabbed the knife she’d left on her dressing table hastily, and, with a brief mental apology to Tauriel, started splitting open her dress down the front. She ripped the fabric the rest of the way once she got to the waist, giving her enough room to kick it down off of her hips, and promptly wiggled into the first practical items of her own clothing that she could find. 

She spared one last glance for Thaliel, who hadn’t moved an inch while Nairi had blown through the space like a panicked tornado. “Stay here,”

And then she was gone, shutting the door behind her and half-running down the hallway, focused only on the weight of the dagger against her thigh and the thought that Thranduil wasn’t going to leave her behind again. She wouldn’t allow him to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love it? Hate it? Want to hit me with a fish? 
> 
> tumblr: midnightbrightlights


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